Chapter 283 - Chapter 276: War of Attrition ②
The crossbowmen, having finished firing their bolts, split to the left and right and ran toward the hills. The infantry units then filled the gap left in the vanguard.
"Lord Arqvist! The infantry have formed their ranks!"
"Understood! The golems will begin to pull back!"
Baron Noah Wikander, one of the infantry commanders, shouted, and Noein responded.
Excluding the soldiers stationed in the forests of the hills, there were about 1,400 survivors in the infantry units. They were divided into two squads of 700 each, led respectively by Baron Wikander and Baron Oggoren.
First, the golems would absorb the enemy's charge, and the ranks of 700 infantry would catch any enemies that slipped through. After fighting for a while, those 700 would retreat, and the other 700 waiting behind them would clash with the enemy next.
By repeating this alternately, they ensured that the entire infantry did not become exhausted all at once. Noein and the others kept the golems rampaging in the front row to prevent gaps from opening during the infantry's retreat, while they themselves, who operated the golems, were protected by the infantry in the front row.
"Alright, pull back! Wikander squad, retreat! Retreat—!"
After exchanging a few sword blows with the enemy, Baron Wikander shouted. Following his command, the infantry of his squad moved backward in a stream. In accordance with this, Noein and the others also retreated bit by bit.
The Oggoren squad, closing in from behind, had formed lines with gaps to allow the soldiers of the Wikander squad to pass through. Once Baron Oggoren confirmed that all soldiers had passed, he gave the order, and the soldiers he led took over as the new vanguard.
Only during this rotation did the front-line combat power inevitably thin, and even with the golems' valiant efforts, the number of enemies leaking through increased; however, those were struck down by the crossbowmen who had moved to the side hills. Having finished reloading, they fired scatter-bolts from the flank at the Betumia soldiers, halting their advance.
By the time the crossbowmen finished firing their bolts, the Oggoren squad had joined Noein and the others to solidify the battle line. Then, the close-quarters combat began again, and the crossbowmen, having finished their cover fire, moved backward through the hills to reload their next bolts.
Repeating this several times, Noein and the others were about to complete their retreat to the planned point. However, just before that, they suffered an unexpected attack from the enemy.
"Watch the sky!"
Hearing Yuri shout beside him, Noein looked up along with the other soldiers. There, an enemy was flying toward them, holding something in their hand.
"A wind mage!?"
"Yeah! And a highly skilled one at that!"
Yuri answered the surprised Noein. Perhaps because there was no room for leisure, his tone was rough.
He hadn't seen a wind mage take flight from within the Betumia Republic Army that had entered the narrow pass. This meant they had flown from much further back, and the fact that they still had the stamina to fight after flying such a long distance indicated they were a person of considerable ability. From the fact that such a person was deployed to the front line, Noein felt the seriousness of Grand Army Commander Foster.
In the next instant, the wind mage's hand glowed. It was the light that appeared when attack magic was released.
"Eh?"
"Noein-sama!"
"!"
From within the light, a mass of flame flew toward Noein. Noein let out a dazed voice in surprise, and as if to protect her master, Matilda embraced him and raised her shield, while Yuri, who grabbed both of them by their collars, leaped backward.
Immediately after, the mass of flame struck the position where the three of them had been just a moment ago, and a blast of fire erupted.
"A fire bomb!? Why would a wind mage... use a magic tool for attack magic!? In actual combat!? Are they an idiot!?"
Noein shouted, realizing what the tool in the wind mage's hand was.
Fire bombs, flame arrows, ice bullets, or wind blades. Magic tools that produced such attack magic had once existed as a manufacturing technology.
However, those were created by the ancient great empire that once ruled the region of the current Lordberg Kingdom and Pallas Empire. That was a story from five hundred years ago. After the great empire split, the Lordberg Kingdom went through an era of warring small states, and the Pallas Empire went through an era of chaos and weakening, and that technology was lost.
Furthermore, according to reports, the technology to create magic tools for attack magic had never even been born on the Grandor Continent where the Betumia Republic is located. It was a technology so complex that it had become a phantom in the present day.
It is said that there are fewer than fifty existing attack magic tools in the entire Lordberg Kingdom, with a dozen or so held by the royal family and the rest held as family treasures by historic noble houses.
The one the enemy wind mage was using was likely stolen from some noble house in the southwest, but a single attack magic tool is said to be worth no less than tens of millions of Rebro. It is an ultra-rare item, closer to a work of art than a weapon. It is not something one brings into actual combat.
"Another one's coming!"
Yuri called out a warning, and almost simultaneously, the wind mage's hand in the sky glowed. The next shot flew toward Claymore Captain Gustav, who was positioned close to Noein and the others.
"Dangerous!"
"Get down!"
The great-shield soldiers protecting the Claymores were professionals gathered from the territorial armies of various high-ranking nobles to guard important persons and mages on the battlefield. The two assigned to Gustav also noticed the enemy attack quickly and raised their shields to create a wall.
The fire bomb hit directly, and the impact blew the three of them back several meters together.
Gustav, protected by the shields and the soldiers' bodies, was almost unscathed, but the two shields were completely destroyed, and the great-shield soldiers did not escape unharmed. One had his face gouged out and was clearly dead. The other was barely breathing, having suffered burns over his entire body.
"D-Damn it! It's okay, I'll get help immediately..."
"No, Gustav! Your life is heavier! Leave that one and have other soldiers assigned to you! You keep fighting with the golems!"
To Gustav, who tried to pick up the soldier who was dying because he had protected him, Yuri presented the cruel logic of the battlefield.
"...! I'm sorry! Truly..."
Gustav left the dying great-shield soldier with a grief-stricken expression and faced the enemy again. By Pence's instruction, two members of the Guard were assigned as Gustav's escorts. What the Guard soldiers held were not great-shields but small round shields, but it was far better than having no escort at all.
"We have to do something about that wind mage... wait, whoa!"
"Protect your heads! Shields up!"
Noein, looking up at the sky, cried out, and Matilda protected both of them with her round shield. Yuri also shouted to the surrounding soldiers while hiding his large body with a shield.
Some of the crossbowmen on the side hills had fired arrows toward the wind mage in the sky.
However, there was no way the arrows of peasant soldiers, who weren't particularly skilled, would easily hit a target flying freely in the sky. The arrows that missed their mark simply rained down into the narrow pass according to gravity. To make matters worse, their tips were coated with 'Angel's Honey'. For Noein and the others fighting in the narrow pass, it was unbearable.
The soldiers standing on the front line fell into confusion, and even the golem users found it difficult to fight, despite protecting their heads with shields. The number of enemy soldiers leaking from the defensive line built by the golems increased, and the Western Army's infantry units were pushed back by the Betumia soldiers.
Furthermore, another fire bomb was fired from the sky. A section of the infantry's battle line was blown away, and the gap in the defensive line grew larger.
Even if they tried to fill that gap, the soldiers could not move as they wished because the arrows fired by their own allies were raining down from directly above.
"Crossbowmen, stop aiming upward! Our battle line will collapse!"
Yuri shouted, and that order was transmitted to the hills via several soldiers. Only then did the rain of scatter-bolts finally stop.
"But, either way, if we leave that guy alone, the attacks from above—"
At that moment, several thick arrows flew from the rear, scattering over Noein and the others and flying further forward. The cover fire from the Ballista squad, which had completed its retreat to the planned point and finished preparing to fire, had begun.
Dozens of large scatter-bolts each split into eighty arrows. Being right in the middle of where that many arrows passed through, no matter how skilled a wind mage they were, they stood no chance.
The wind mage, with dozens of arrows piercing their entire body, felt their body go numb and fell.
In a final desperate struggle, the wind mage exercised magic to create a gust of wind and floated back into the sky for a moment, but after that, their body seemed to have completely stiffened, and they were slammed into the ground from dozens of meters up. The attack magic tool in their hand was also destroyed by the impact.
"We're saved..."
"But one rare ancient item has vanished."
"Ahaha, well, it's certainly a waste, but it's just a thing after all."
Exchanging words with Yuri while watching the national-treasure-class magic tool shatter into pieces, Noein faced forward and concentrated on the battle. In the suffocating, extreme environment of the battlefield, these momentary conversations were the only diversion to relieve the tension.