Ch.194War (2)

Mounted on Pegasus Gus, who is equipped with specialized horse armor, I leap forward from the castle wall as if diving off, beginning our advance.

The weapon in my hand is none other than the special lance I used previously against some mid-tier warrior cultist.

Holding this heavy weapon filled with murderous intent, designed solely to kill a single enemy, I move forward escorted by the will-o’-wisps that Gretel created with her magic, circling around me.

My fully repaired blade shield, separated and spread out near the ground, occasionally blocks incoming arrows. Now quite accustomed to Gus’s flight-gallop, I maneuver the shield here and there.

Pushing my senses to their limits puts strain on my brain, but the situation isn’t serious enough to make this unbearable.

“….Phew.”

In any case, the enemy I must personally target is the former Count Lur, the cause of this incident.

My objective is to exploit the weakness of the ‘Event Recreation’ dark art that created this undead army.

Of course, the battle situation is clearly flowing in our favor since we have many pre-prepared measures, but as I observe, I can see the undead gradually recovering over time in the distance.

In short, the burden of engaging in a prolonged battle with undead who never tire and respawn(?) after some time when killed is extremely high.

Especially since they could fight for dozens of hours without rest, our side will reach its limit incomparably faster, no matter how superior our combat power might be.

Therefore, we need a swift, decisive attack. Fighting a prolonged battle against undead who never tire, need no water or food, and suffer no environmental constraints would be suicidal.

As I advance forward to prepare for a decapitation operation targeting their leadership, I come face to face with an attack incomparable to the occasional arrows that had been flying until now.

‘Is that… a skull?’

A barrage of magical bullets in the form of purple skulls engulfed in violet flames flies toward me.

Each magical bullet is composed of necromantic energy befitting its appearance. Not only is its power incredibly strong in terms of draining life energy, but the key is undoubtedly the various curses imbued alongside its destructive power.

Of course—there’s nothing more foolish than not preparing countermeasures against magic on such a battlefield, and preparations were completed long ago.

“Hihihihihing—!!”

—Flaaaaash!!

A white flash spreads with Gus’s resounding cry. The pegasus’s sacred power strips away the curses enveloping the attack and diminishes its momentum.

—Kwang—Whooosh!!

And toward these attacks whose momentum has been weakened, some of the will-o’-wisps escorting me fly in to intercept them.

The air current bursting from the explosive reaction momentarily shakes Gus, but thanks to the special stirrup and belt structure, fortunately, I don’t lose balance.

Well, there’s nothing more embarrassing than a knight my age simply falling off his horse.

Anyway, by the time about half of the will-o’-wisps controlled by Gretel, who was sharing my vision from afar, had intercepted these magical bullets…

“—There!”

“Hihing!”

Though they tried to hide their position by making it difficult to pinpoint where the magical bullets came from, my ‘hyper-intuition’ and ‘eagle vision’ instantly located the enemy leadership mixed among the crowd.

Protected naturally by dozens of skeleton guards based on men-at-arms, while proudly standing among dozens of skeleton medium cavalry, the ‘leadership’ numbered six in total.

There appear to be four skeleton knights seemingly for escort purposes. One undead knight presumed to be the former Baron Lur, with a muscular pig-like build… close to what’s commonly called a ‘Dong Zhuo physique.’

And beside them, seemingly receiving subtle protection, a mid-tier necromancer catches my eye.

‘….That’s the one!’

Likely the culprit who fired magic at me, and simultaneously highly likely to be the person who raised the former Baron Lur back to mid-tier status.

The necromancer, with several skull ornaments dangling from his belt, saw our approach and was about to shout something with his ugly face contorted.

Perhaps unable to attack immediately due to the backlash from using a powerful spell earlier, he seemed to be trying to move the surrounding undead to somehow block me as I flew in.

But instead of showing any particular response to that, I decided to just carry out the original plan.

—Swoosh.

What I pulled out from my breast pocket was a pistol-type launcher resembling a flare gun often seen in modern media.

I raised the already loaded flare gun above my head and pulled the trigger, firing the flare—this primitive flare more like a firework rocket—to signal the Yester side….

—Kwaaaang!!!

A moment later. As thin explosive sounds echoed several times from over there, familiar things began to fly toward us.

“—Kiyahooooo!!!”

“Waaaaaaa—!!”

It was the mid-tier quartet, screaming wildly as they were happily loaded and fired like ammunition.

※ ※ ※

This mid-tier firing operation, also known as the mid-tier shell operation, is simply a troop transport operation prepared in case the escort guards of the leadership proved quite powerful.

It’s literally the insane act of putting humans into cannons and firing them instead of shells, but when considering methods to deploy mid-tiers into the heart of enemy territory, it’s actually several times more efficient than conventional methods.

Since a mid-tier’s durability is incredibly robust, they won’t die just from being fired like this, and as their speed naturally decreases during flight, they don’t get crushed from landing failures.

Of course, no matter how you look at it, it’s still a dangerous method with a significant chance of death, but finding volunteers wasn’t much of a problem.

“Me! I’ll do it!”

“I want to do it too!”

“….I’ll do it!!”

These surprisingly macho and tough individuals showed quite high willingness to volunteer for this ‘cool’ and fun role, and thanks to that, the quartet flying in now could be called the elite of mid-tier elites.

The wild and ferocious Hannah, a young blood (promising talent) from the knight order branch, one of the mid-tier mercenary captains, and a mid-tier from the Adventurer’s Guild.

These individuals, who managed to get selected by citing various political reasons, were flying in like shells from the other side, and recognizing this, I… prepared to charge to set an example and stabilize their landing point.

“Gus, let’s start descending.”

“Hihing!!”

While ordering Gus, who had been hovering in place flapping his wings, to increase altitude, I also signaled for the will-o’-wisps to be released first.

As the will-o’-wisps that had been circling around us began descending to the ground, we, having just completed our attack preparations, now descended with gravity’s pull, aiming the lance tip precisely and….

—Whoooooosh!!!

At the same time, the will-o’-wisps that had reached the ground first exploded, spraying flames in all directions.

Thanks to this, as miscellaneous obstacles were swept away by the flame attack, I charged down from the sky like a meteor and aimed my spear at the enemy.

And—

—Kwaaaaaaang!!!

With the dull sound of collision and the characteristic sound of an explosion, the noise spreads in all directions.

The lance, propelled by the explosive charge, pierces directly into the body of the necromancer, who needed to be neutralized first to prevent variables, and detonates.

—Click—Kwaaaaaaang!!!

When I pulled the lance’s trigger for a confirmation kill, the tip of the lance heated up and then burst, and in this process, the fragments that spread explosively tore the necromancer’s flesh to shreds.

This was, without doubt, instant death. The price for momentarily forgetting about me while focusing on defending against magic had been fully paid.

‘….So the undead don’t disappear.’

But as I was discovering from the fact that the undead didn’t disappear in this situation that this former Baron Lur was not some mere summon…

—Kwaaaaaaang!!

The people who had flown in from over there landed on the ground one by one, keeping watch in all directions, while the surrounding undead also stared at us, sensing our vibrant life force.

But for some reason, the undead, who should be rushing toward us having lost their reason due to hatred for the living, were only sending hostility without actually attacking me, and….

[….A familiar presence.]

The owner of the hideous and disgusting voice reaching my ears, the cause of this situation, was naturally the former Baron Lur.

‘….So he’s a Death Knight after all.’

To be precise, he was in a state of having become a mid-tier undead known as a Death Knight.