Chapter 189. Middle Game (4)
Enoch and his party hurried back, making as little noise as possible.
Looking back at April and Alicia running beside him, a faint sense of impatience was visible on their faces.
I had a bad feeling.
“Hey, do you think it’s okay?”
“I wonder.”
Soon, from beyond the hill, the sound of cannons firing, the roar of weapons clashing, and shouts were heard.
The sight of the high night sky was blood-red.
Looking at it, Enoch added.
“We’ll have to see.”
Suddenly, the ridge of the hill they were circling ended, and their view opened up at once. The shouts that the hill had been absorbing now pierced their ears even louder.
Having been in the darkness until now, Enoch involuntarily narrowed his eyes at the sudden influx of light into his retinas.
"Damn it, it’s already this bad…!"
In the short time they were gone, the tide of battle had completely turned.
The battlefield, illuminated here and there by the white lights set up by the freelancers, had already become a hell.
The organized formation of the freelancer legion had collapsed, and the army of magical beasts had pushed right up to the low hill where Enoch’s squad had been positioned.
Flames were already billowing from all sides of the freelancer unit, which was being ravaged by the magical beasts.
For a moment, a word flashed through my mind.
—Chess.
If the chess that Shepherd had alluded to could truly represent strategy and tactics.
Then this was the very middle of that game.
The battlefield where, in response to the enemy knight’s next move, our side had to deploy another move, was unfolding right here, before Enoch’s eyes.
The so-called, middle of the chess game.
Middlegame.
There was no other way to describe this scene.
Before, the opening of the game of chess had begun with the enemy knight launching a surprise attack on the outsourcing district with flying magical beasts.
Then now, it was the middle of the game.
In the midst of this battlefield, which was now entering an all-out war, fierce battles were unfolding, as is the case in all games.
In the middle of the battlefield, the smoke from a smoke grenade dropped by someone was rising thickly again.
Hwaaaaarrrr!!
Suddenly, through the scattering smoke from the distance.
Dozens of super-hot fireballs, trailing tails of intense heat, hit a magical beast whose shell was glinting.
-KIRIRIRIRIRIK!!
However, the magical beast, ignoring its burning shell, immediately rushed at the freelancer who had fired the flames.
It leaped several meters into the air and jumped into the freelancer’s interim unit.
The freelancers on the high ground were flustered and began to provide support fire, but the magical beast, like a specter mad with bloodlust, weaved through the falling bullets and swung its arms wildly.
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
Before they could react, a spray of blood shot up with the screams of the victims.
Just then, as the magical beast, which had been rampaging through the enemy lines, felt something strange and looked back.
KUUUUUUUNG!!
In an instant, a huge, mechanically designed double-bladed axe split its head in half and plunged down.
For a moment, black ashes flew in all directions.
A gruff voice echoed loudly.
“Khahaha, I’m surprised these magical beasts are this troublesome! No wonder the pay was unusual!!”
Damastes.
The freelancer from the same office who had previously confronted April, lifted his axe into the air with his muscular arms and laughed heartily.
The black axe blade glinted eerily in the moonlight.
“Good! Good, fellow freelancers!! You pitiful pack of dogs from our abandoned outsourcing district!!”
He shouldered his double-bladed axe and roared.
“There’s no one here to help us, so let’s risk our lives and make a killing here!!”
His eyes shining fiercely, he immediately spun his double-bladed axe, kicked off the ground, and charged.
He roared loudly as he rushed towards the enemy lines.
“Magical beasts, listen carefully and carve this into your hearts!!”
Damastes immediately slammed his axe into the solar plexus of the next magical beast and, with a laugh of battle high, shouted.
“Even a pack of dogs like us, abandoned by society, at least have the right to live here!!”
He charged forward, the enemy still impaled on his axe, and a white frost spread from the end of his magic gear.
From Enoch’s side, April, with cold eyes, glanced at him and let out a sigh.
“Phew, he really puts on a show.”
“It seems that mage is quite strong in his own right.”
“Ha. He may look like that, but he’s a 15th Rank, just like me. He has a lot of combat experience too.”
April, who had replied as if it didn't matter, shrugged her white shoulders, which were revealed under the moonlight.
Then, with a slightly dejected expression, she said.
“Well, I can’t imagine it compared to the mages of the Elsyde where the Direct Lineage Member lives, but actually, among freelancers, he’s considered quite a high-level talent, you know?”
The moonlight fell on the side of April’s face as she spoke with a slightly dejected look, glancing at Sirocco and Alicia.
Well, her situation was easy to understand.
The power that Sirocco had shown when they had attacked the magical beasts’ detached force earlier, which was beyond the wall of the 10th Rank, and Alicia’s combat style, where she used bombardment magic inscribed in the cartridges of her lance to crush all enemies, were surely levels that April had aspired to.
Enoch could understand the frustration she must have felt when she witnessed that overwhelming level of power firsthand.
It was no different from the invisible wall he had felt from the moment he had inherited the sword from the Empire’s last Sword Saint, and then the Sword Saint of the Waves.
Even now, having grown much stronger than before, it was a part he felt keenly every time he inherited the sword of a Sword Saint.
Their swords, honed through countless years of effort, were like an invisible barrier every time he faced them, and in the beginning, there were more than a few times when he had almost lost heart while inheriting them.
But it was not good to despair.
Especially now, at this moment.
“Don’t compare yourself to others so easily. You are you.”
“Y-yes?”
April looked at Enoch, slightly flustered.
Ignoring her reaction, Enoch looked at April and replied.
“April, I think you’re already a high-level talent. You proved it in the battle just now.”
“Ahaha, i-is that so?”
April lowered her slightly long eyelashes.
Then, she turned her head slightly to the side and muttered in a meaningful voice.
“Umm, is it just my imagination? I feel like I’ve heard something similar somewhere recently.”
“……Is that so.”
The short chat naturally ended there.
Having gathered her thoughts, April looked at Enoch with her sharp, cat-like eyes.
“Alright. Let’s not drag this on, let’s start.”
“Yes. I think everyone is ready.”
Enoch also closed his eyes for a moment and then slowly opened them.
It wasn't for nothing that he had been talking with April on top of this hill.
It was to give the squad members, who had just finished a battle and moved, a short rest and time to grasp the battle situation.
“From now on, the squad will disperse and support the other freelancers who are struggling.”
The moment Enoch’s order, who had been looking down at the battlefield from the hill, was given, the squad began to move in unison.
“Alicia of Victoria, will join the battle with my Bombardment Lance!”
“Hmph, leave it to me.”
Alicia, holding her jet-black Bombardment Lance at an angle, and Sirocco, who had leaped off the ground with her smooth, white, bare legs, the two beautiful girls, with superhuman movements, ran forward like the wind.
“Then, I’ll start scouting now-mda!”
From the side, Nano, who had deployed her drone into the air with a single swing of her arm, began to search for enemies and read the battle situation.
And right next to Enoch, on the large rock on the hill, April, with a light movement, pulled the charging handle and loaded the next round.
“I’ll snipe the enemy.”
She shouldered the butt of the rifle to her cheek.
The barrel, secretly glowing with the color of mana, rotated the bullet it fired in an instant.
The magic inscribed on the mana stone warhead, in sync with the rotation of the rifling, was built up and stacked.
TAAAAAANG!!
For a moment, a pink flash that broke the sound barrier rushed through the air, and, as if splitting the night sky in half, it began to fly over the battlefield, trailing a long tail.
On the pitch-black battlefield of midnight, a black-and-white chessboard was forming, illuminated by the light of the white lights.
The sniper round streaked across the battlefield.
On the battlefield created by the illusion of the flying bullet, the pieces collided and became entangled.
In the brief moment that the sniper round passed, the chess pieces on the board took each other out one by one and fell to the ground.
The shouts and screams of friend and foe.
The screams of the wounded and the sound of gunshots and clashing weapons were entangled, playing out a chaotic battlefield.
The distinction between friend and foe was impossible, as they were all entangled in the middle, fighting a chaotic battle.
Sirocco and Alicia ran side by side across the battlefield, searching for freelancers who needed rescue.
Sirocco’s ability to defeat the enemy and rescue her allies was comparable to a fierce storm.
She rescued a freelancer who had fallen back and was desperately scrambling backward from the magical beasts’ attack, and she rescued a survivor of an interim who was surrounded and separated from his allies.
Alicia blew away the densely packed magical beasts with her bombardment and began to carry the injured humans in her arms at once.
Those who were saved were either dazed, or thanked them more than necessary several times.
And then, they would look straight into Enoch’s eyes, grip his hand tightly, and then return to the battlefield without a word. Their reactions were all different.
But naturally, on a battlefield where life and death were at stake, there were not only beautiful stories.
The sight of a freelancer who had unfortunately lost both legs and fought to the end, but could not be rescued by a hair’s breadth, being overrun by magical beasts.
A freelancer who, after his firearm magic gear, which had had its magazine changed and dropped dozens of times, malfunctioned due to overheating, was attacked by a magical beast while drawing his sidearm.
And a freelancer who was injected with bodily fluids and was firing at his own team members who were mutating.
Hell.
There was no other way to describe it.
“Ah, aah…”
From the side, Lily, clutching her healing magic gear, looked down at the battlefield and let out a sigh.
Then Nano went to Lily’s side and hugged her, who was trembling, and soothed her.
“It’s okay-mda, Sister.”
“Th-thank you, Sister.”
Lily, embraced in her warm hug, closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them with determination.
“Still, if it were the Saintess Amelia whom I serve, she definitely would not have looked away!”
Lily immediately glanced at the place where the wounded were gathered at the bottom of the hill and turned her head to me.
“Direct Lineage Member! Please let me help with what I can do!”
But just then, as if to erase her words, a loud shout was heard.
“Hey! Something’s coming over there!!”
Everyone’s gaze turned there in unison.
“What the, that thing! It’s insanely huge!”
“Exceed-class? No! It’s bigger than that!!”
The horizon in the darkness.
Through the darkness of the vast forest, a huge body was slowly revealing itself over the corpses of the magical beasts that were crumbling into ash.
For a moment, Enoch had an intuition and muttered.
“Yes, I thought it was strange from the beginning.”
The leader of the magical beasts, who had not shown himself until now even though he had deployed a detached force.
This army of magical beasts.
The leader-class individual was now revealing its huge body on the battlefield and advancing.