First Battle (2)

[Union's HQ][Iris]

After, nightfall, both armies decided to retreat as it was not worth fighting in the dark for any of us.

It has become some sort of unwritten rule on the battlefield, although it is not like demons would just follow rules.

The chairman had called us commanders into the HQ, although we called it that, it was pretty much just 6 tents, around 1 big tent, where we would have our meetings and sleep.

I arrived, and could already see that everyone including the human was sitting down, so I did the same.

"Then should we start the report?", Asked the chairman.

"Yes", said, Leo.

Leo then started to explain, that Amadeus, had returned and that the Lich's summons, was annoying to deal with, for the (S) ranked, and (A) ranked squadrons.

Lucia then started to explain that the undead lord was pretty slow with his attacks but they still carried great force within them and that it was impossible for her to deal with it, due to its immortality.

She then said, that the knowledge about Lichs, needs to be spread amongst the army, as our troops were pathetic when dealing with them.

She explained that after our front liners had cut the summons down, they continued to advance because they didn't know that the summons could regenerate, and the mages behind soon followed behind them, but the undead warriors regenerated and rampaged throughout our backline, killing even a wizard and an alchemist that was handing out potions.

Due to that, the chairman said that there would be an announcement really soon regarding the Lich's summons.

Bres, then asked, "Do we have the bodies of the wizards and mages that were killed, I don't wish for the enemy to grow stronger"

At that, all of our eyes widened, and we noticed that we had committed a grave mistake.

Leo put his finger on his brows, and even the chairman let out a sigh and said he would add that to the announcement.

I wanted to change the atmosphere so I said, "Don't worry, next time, I will send one of my chains to capture the undead lord and we can get an advantage with that".

Bres put his hand on his chin and said, "Well, it is true that you could counter the summons but considering the fact that it can be easily blocked, I don't believe Yuki, will allow such a thing"

Leo nodded his head, and after that, we discussed the ways we could deal with Yuki's ice, as it was one of the most annoying abilities to deal with.

After the meeting ended, an announcement resounded throughout the whole camp. It explained the Lich's summons and it advised not letting the enemy summons take back the corpses of those they have killed, as it would become the power of the enemy.

And with that, I tried to sleep, but a thought came to my mind.

'it was that only after the appraisal appearance, that the Lich's summons start to appear'

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

'Why would they bring the appraiser into the frontline?'

'Why did the Lich's appearance only happen after the kidnapping of the appraiser'

Although there was still room for doubt, I believed that the appraiser needed to be eliminated as fast as possible, because the demon's power was growing by the seconds.

I called everyone to the meeting place and after everyone arrived, I told them about my hypothesis.

Lucia then started to click things on her watch and a hologram appeared.

[Calling, Ray]

"...Hello?", Said a man.

"Ray, I need your help"

"What?"

"I need to know if Keith had a Lich as his summoned beast"

"Huh?", The man said in a confused tone.

"It's just as I said", Lucia restated.

after a moment of silence, the sound of papers turning and clicking came from the call, and the man soon began to speak.

"Although there is no actual proof, I can tell you that during the summoning class of the academy, Keith was able to summon something that others couldn't see, and he passed the class after a contract appeared on the air, so maybe he indeed has a Lich as his summoned beast"

"Ok"

"Why do yo-"

*Beep

Before the man could ask anything else, the woman ended the call without any hesitation.

The room was silent after hearing this news, but I started to believe that my possibility was becoming more plausible.

I told, Leo, that the appraiser should be dealt with immediately no matter what, as it would allow us to eliminate the summons and also reduce the number of artifacts they can know about.

Everyone agreed, but I could see that Lucia, had a bitter expression on her face.

...

[Demon's Camp][Keith]

After yesterday's attack, I got a wizard and I was told to use him in battle, but I also told Baggy to make him also attack and launch a spell in the direction of the demons now and then.

This was both to decrease the demon's power and of course to increase my stats by killing some of them.

It was soon going to be time to attack and the undead lord would be the main part of this, so I had already summoned him and currently, we were looking to see if we could put artifacts on him.

I had been appraising items all night yesterday and we couldn't really find any armors that had a readjustment trait, which pretty much just adjusts an armor to its owner size to fit him perfectly.

In the end, we couldn't find one and it was decided that Yuki would be giving him armor made from her ice magic.

I once again sat down on the cliff to be able to see the battlefield, until I widened my eyes.

*Swoosh

An arrow stopped right in front of my eyes, I could feel a small amount of pain on my forehead and felt blood dripping from it.

There was a hand holding the arrow and when I looked up, I noticed that it was Amadeus that had saved me.

He looked at me and said, "Stay behind from now on, it would be bad if I can't protect you next time"

It took me a second to realize what was going on but I stood up and bowed my head to Amadeus and said, "Yes, my lord"

I went back into my tent and laid down on my bed.

'Leo, from the union was most likely the archer that shot at me'

Instead of feeling fear or anything at the sudden events, I felt anger.

It was exactly, like that time when I saw Lucia a few days ago, I wanted to kill everyone from the Union once again.

I started to feel my head heat up once again and I tried to relax as much as possible, it was easier to deal with than before but it was probably due to the [Blood Fox Mask], and its traits.

My head started to hurt once again and my thoughts started to jumble up.

I felt like killing everyone, it didn't matter who it was, the Union, the demons, or the humans, it was like I wanted to kill everyone who I had a grudge against, be it small or big.

I decided to leave the camp because the sound of everyone marching and moving was starting to make my headache hurt more than ever.

I went to the secluded area, I once went to and laid down on the hard rocky floor, I closed my eyes and tried to relax.

Moments after, I felt something pushing against my cheek, I opened my eyes and could see that Baggy was pressing against my cheek.

After sensing my gaze, he started to float around my head, but my head just thought of him as annoying.

I decided to stand up and head back to the camp but the moment I saw a demon in front of me, my mind went blank and without a moment of hesitation, 10 knives were already stuck on his body and he was bleeding out.

I heard a step behind me and an annoying voice said, "Killing your own men, huh?"

I turned around and said, "I apologize, commander Botis, I was feeling quite stressed"

Botis didn't say anything else and decided to leave me alone.

When he was far enough I told Baggy that when the fight started, to command the wizard to launch spells in every direction he can and never stop.

The summons from a Lich didn't need mana, meaning that the wizard could keep attacking no matter what, although there would be a small cooldown between every spell.

Even after finishing the demon off, the pain in my head didn't stop so I decided to head back to my little secluded space and just laid down on the floor while staring blankly at the sky.

'I should kill everyone, maybe then, this pain would finally stop'

'Yes, I should just kill them all'

'Or maybe I should just give up'

'It's not like I even belonged in this world, yeah, I should just disappear'

Such thoughts kept coming to my head, but I just closed my eyes and relaxed my tired body that hadn't gotten any rest for appraising all night.