Chapter 35: Defensive Battle

A pillar of light fell from the sky.

The sight was so striking that everyone on the battlefield—monsters and men alike—stopped moving for a moment and looked at the light. The men found solace and hope in its presence, while the monsters instantly understood that a terrible threat had just arrived.

Before long, eleven elite knights who'd been chosen to protect the saint—that meant all of the saint's guard, save for Viscount Fox who was currently in the academy—stepped onto the battlefield and glared at the monsters fiercely.

Behind them was Ellize, the hope of humanity, and a few knights-in-training who attended the academy alongside her... Oh, and some weirdo with glasses that no one really knew.

Layla, the head of the saint's guard, stood at Ellize's left side, ready to protect her. Meanwhile Verner, the student who'd received a sword from the saint, stood at her right.

The crow looked at them in displeasure. It suddenly understood how shallow its planning had been.

"The saint arrived too quickly... And why are the knights...by her side?"

The crow knew that Ellize had been locked up by her fellow humans. It had no idea why they'd made such a foolish decision, but it had given them the perfect opportunity to strike.

It knew that Ellize could—quite literally—fly to the rescue if they were to march into the royal capital, but it had assumed she'd be alone. Her guards had betrayed her, after all. It thought there was no way she'd bring traitors with her to the battlefield—not to mention it didn't know she had the ability to do so in the first place. And so, the crow had assumed that Ellize would come alone. If some of her guards were to follow her, they'd arrive much later anyway.

In the end, both of its assumptions had proved wrong.

Ellize had somehow managed to transport members of her guard—as well as a few other people—all the way here in a few minutes. To make matters worse, they didn't even seem to be on bad terms.

Had the crow been given false information, or had they made up already? Either way, the worst had come to pass. Had everything gone as planned, the monsters should've already annihilated the city's defenses. However, the aggravating mob of knights and soldiers had prevented them from advancing.

"The saint! The saint's here!"

"She's here!"

"Her guards are here too!"

The morale of the Bilberrian troops shot up as soon as they saw Ellize and her group. As humanity's hope, she was the symbol of justice. Her very presence was enough to inspire those around her.

"Look, she's here... Can you see her? She made it... Our fight, your death... None of it was in vain..." one of the knights whimpered, holding the lifeless body of one of his fallen comrades.

He let go of his friend and picked up the sword the departed man had left behind instead. Now that the saint had arrived, the tide of the battle would turn. Victory was in their grasp. They only needed to hold their ground for a little longer. Even if their efforts didn't matter and the saint could win this battle all on her own, they'd keep fighting alongside her. They'd let the world hear them!

We're here! The saint is here!

The crow groaned. "Curse you!"

It unleashed a tornado, trying to create an opportunity of attack. As soon as Ellize lifted her eyes, however, the strong winds halted, then changed direction. The tornado hurtled toward the monsters, swallowing them and hurling them into the sky. Their formation quickly crumbled.

At the same time, Ellize used her healing magic. In a split second, every single knight and soldier who had yet to succumb to their injuries was as good as new.

◇

Royal capital, here I come!

The monsters' army seemed a little larger than the one I'd seen in the Lutein Kingdom.

There are still so many of them left!And here I thought I'd done a good job clearing them all up.

The remnants had most likely gathered in a last-ditch effort. With the witch being holed up in the academy's basement, I kinda understood them. They had to take matters into their own hands if they wanted to survive.

Courageous of them, sure, but it's not going to work now that I'm here!

I should've thanked them for saving me the trouble of hunting them down. Now, I got to eradicate them in one clean sweep.

Anyway, it was time to deal the final blow once and for all! This would probably be the last time I could bully monsters to my heart's content, so I decided to go all out. Verner and the others were also here to witness my performance, and I wanted to leave them in awe.

"Aurea Libertas!" I shouted, continuing my streak of super cool foreign technique names.

This time, I hadn't picked a maxim—Aurea Libertas, or "Golden Liberty," was the name of an old Polish political system in which nobles held the country's power. They still had a king, but he didn't have any say in politics.

The king reigns but does not govern.What? You're wondering what that system has to do with the current situation...? Well nothing, really! But the name sounds cool, doesn't it?

While shouting the name, I shot a large golden laser beam at the sky. It expanded before scattering into countless thin lasers that fell upon the monsters. The lasers danced in midair, dodging my allies and targeting only my enemies. The monsters fell to the ground one after the other.

"I won't let that damn saint do as she pleases! Kill her!" the crow that seemed to be leading the army screamed.

Oh, so the archmonster is a crow. No wonder, they're super smart.

I remembered reading an article about crows. According to the researchers of, uh...somewhere—I couldn't for the life of me recall where—crows were as smart as seven-year-olds. It was pretty impressive, considering that was the age when humans started to truly understand what happened around them.

People seldom had memories of when they were three or four, but events that happened when you were seven usually stuck with you well into adulthood. Seven-year-olds' brains were developed enough for them to remember things, have entire conversations, and even read and write.

I remembered playing video games when I was that age, and I was pretty sure a modern kid would be able to use a smartphone if you handed them one.

Monsters became even smarter when they turned into archmonsters, so that crow was probably as intelligent as a human adult by now.

At the clever crow's order, the bird monsters came flying at me.

Attacking from the sky now, are we?

I was the only one on our side who could fly, so they were able to come straight at me. I effortlessly leaped up and prepared to welcome them.

A bit of light magic should do the trick.

"A picture is worth—"

"I won't let you approach Lady Ellize!" Scotterbrain exclaimed before I could finish my spell. She jumped up and cut down a dozen birds.

Scotterbrain! You're in my way! I almost killed you!

It was kinda impressive that she could reach flying enemies and cut them down with a single jump, but it wasn't the time for her to show off her skills!

Layla launched herself off of one of the monsters to remain in the air. She managed to kill a few more enemies before repeating the motion. Eventually, she made a final jump, leaping as high as she possibly could, before letting herself fall. She spun in the air, rotating her blade and hacking through yet another group of birds on her way down.

Is that girl even human?

Anyone who was able to witness today would immediately understand how she'd become the head of the saint's guard at twenty.

The other members of my guard followed her lead, leaping to fight with the bird monsters midair. I couldn't find an occasion to strike.

Rex was using wind magic to create denser areas he could use as footholds for his jumps. Just like Layla, he spun around in the air, cutting down monsters in his wake. Finley was using ice magic to create swords, then sending gusts of wind magic to hurl them at enemies. His fighting style, although precise, was pretty ridiculous. Are you using seven swords at once, dude?

Thanks to their hard work, the monsters hadn't managed to reach me at all. The only issue was... I couldn't attack either!

There were tons of monsters around and not a single one could approach me! Guys! Can't you go help the weaker knights and soldiers instead?

I didn't think I'd be able to launch my spell, so I gave up and decided to go for another golden laser beam. At least I could decrease the number of monsters from afar this way.

I'd always preferred playing alone for this very reason. Destroying hundreds of enemies at once with a nice AoE spell was the best feeling in the world! When you played with friends, though, you only ended up with more obstacles in your way and you couldn't use area spells. They'd all be running around on the battlefield, so you had to stick to boring spells.

I wanna dive into the middle of the enemiiiiiiies! I wanna use an AoE spell and wipe out their entire army in one gooooo!

And yet, whenever I tried to move forward, my guards stopped me. "Lady Ellize, please don't approach the front line! We'll protect you!"

I don't need your protection! I'm not some weakling!

When had they gotten the impression that I was some feeble princess that needed protecting?

Since I couldn't do much myself at the moment, I decided to buff my allies instead. "Fortune favors the bold," I chanted.

I liked going solo better, but since I had a bunch of ally units on the map, it would've been a waste not to use them.

All right, let's change gears.

Thousands of blades of light fell from the sky, piercing through the monsters before stopping in front of the soldiers. I'd made these blades out of condensed mana, and if I dared say so myself, they looked flawless—not a nick to be seen. They also came with a few buffs.

They'd send electrical signals straight to users' brains that allowed them to go past their limits. In a nutshell, it'd give them an adrenaline rush. Usually, humans could only use twenty to thirty percent of their strength. If you went over that, you risked damaging your body. Obviously, my swords also healed the wielders to make up for that.

With these swords, the soldiers would be able to use their abilities to the maximum. They'd continuously hurt themselves in the process, sure, but my healing would allow them to keep fighting. Speaking of which, I'd also added a numbing effect so they wouldn't feel the pain. Oh, and I also made sure the soldiers' brains would release tons of dopamine...or whatever that chemical was called. It would help them fight without fear. They'd stay motivated and brave—the perfect soldiers.

I'm totally acting like a villain again, aren't I?

To be fair, I'd tested these swords out a few times, and as far as I could tell, there were no side effects. So it was fine, right? Right?

If you'd allow me to play the devil's advocate for a moment—soldiers often died because they were too weak to measure up to monsters, faltered because of the pain, or cowered in fear. They'd be better off with my method, wouldn't they? Whenever I gave soldiers these swords, the mortality rate dropped by a lot, so it couldn't be that bad, right?!

All right... Who am I kidding here? This tactic is right out of the Villain 101 crash course!

"Wield these swords, soldiers!" I ordered.

Now that all of my soldiers were high thanks to the performance-enhancing swords I'd given them, they started pushing back the monsters.

They're going at it!

They'd been on the defensive this entire time, but now they were winning against our foes. The soldiers had all become as strong as knights in a split second.

As for the members of my guard, they came running to me after seeing the soldiers' prowess and knelt in front of me. "Lady Ellize, please bestow these swords of light upon us!"

You all want performance-enhancing swords too? You really don't need any doping, you know? You're plenty strong already!

I honestly thought they didn't need them, but then they looked at me with their big puppy eyes and I couldn't help but yield.

"Amazing... I feel so much stronger!"

Yeah, that's how these things work.

"Me too! My heart feels more settled too."

Like I said, that's the dopamine doing its job.

"My wounds are healing!"

Well, without the healing effects, you'd tear down your bodies using these swords.

Either way, they all looked pumped. They began slaughtering the bird monsters that kept flocking toward us.

I have nothing to doooo!

The tide had turned, and the Bilberrian army and my knights were mowing down the enemies. None of them managed to even get close to me.

Well, I guess our victory is set in stone now. I don't see how we could lose this.I can't wait for the fighting to end. I'll have a nice bath afterward."Damn! We need to at least get rid of the saint!"

The crow seemed to have understood there would be no coming back for them, so it shifted its objective to taking me down with them. It flew straight at me, so fast that it almost looked like a bullet.

My knights didn't react in time. It was getting closer and closer, ready to impale me on its beak.

Sorry, but it's not gonna work.

If anything, I was glad the most dangerous monster was coming at me. I didn't want it to flee—especially not with so many nuisances around. It had been fast enough to dodge my lasers, and I'd have a hard time going after it with my allies pestering me otherwise. This was my chance to bring it down.

I let it approach and extended both arms, ready to catch it.

Come on, aim straight at me... I'm right here, so you'd better not miss.

"Lady Ellize?! Why are you... Are you trying to shield the soldiers behind you?!"

Looks like Scotterbrain's misunderstood me again.

Were there even soldiers behind me? I hadn't noticed at all.

Whatever, it doesn't matter. Come on, little crow! I'm defenseless, so jump into my arms! I can't wait to see you despair when you understand your last attempt at killing me is futile!

"Lady Ellize!"

Here I was, super confident nothing could go wrong anymore, when Verner suddenly jumped in front of me and threw his arms around me. The next moment, the crow's beak stabbed his back.

Wh-What? You... WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!

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