Chapter 175. Celebrity (4)

Just a day ago, the war seemed to be practically over.

After losing their main forces, the Outsiders were forced back to Jormungand Citadel. They could only hole up and attempt to prolong the inevitable. The Allied Forces had it surrounded. As the Outsiders lost their supply routes, they grew more and more desperate. The Allied Forces had victory in their grasp, just by continuing the siege.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Allied Forces were superior in both numbers and quality of troops. The Outsiders had no chance of winning in a direct conflict either.

However, the situation had changed dramatically.

A white light flashed from Jormungand Citadel. It swept through everything in its path.

Its effective range and power was immense. The biggest problem, however, was that it was impossible to predict where it would shoot next.

Twelve hours. That was the apparent cooldown between shots. The Allied Forces suffered immense damage every half day.

In an unexpected situation, the Allied Forces held an emergency meeting. “This is the third time already.”

The commanders of the Imperial Army gathered at the hastily prepared conference hall.

In front of them was a communication station with symbols representing the five nations of the Western Kingdom Union.

[-This bombardment severely damaged the armies of Arunbeth and Lemton] Its first attack was aimed at the barbarians.

Their troops, having won back to back victories while pushing deep into enemy territory on the northern battle line, suffered an instantaneous defeat due to that white flash.

Since then, the beam of white light had been aimed at the Western Kingdom Union.

Twice. Just two attacks had wreaked significant and devastating damage to the Western Kingdom Union.

The Allied Forces had no counter-measures and had to just endure these unprecedented attacks, fearing that their next moment may be their last. They had no way of determining where and when it would attack next.

Even if they could manage to predict these things, in the face of such overwhelming power, they would still be helpless in front of it.

Typically, the power of a spell fell off sharply as the distance it travelled increased. This was common sense; spells traded their destructive power in exchange for additional range. However, the concentrated beam of light from Jormungand did not appear to diminish at all, despite originating from such an immense range.

“The white beam looks to be of at least the Seventh-Circle or higher.” A sorrowful atmosphere filled the conference hall.

Seventh-Circle magic.

The only one known to be capable of performing such spells was Zod Exarion. [-There is only one Seventh-Circle wizard on the continent.]

[-He’s in the hospital in the Adeina Kingdom now.]

[-Then we can only try and figure out what that white beam is.] “A homunculus.”

The Outsiders’ strongest weapon and the only weapon that had managed to threaten the status quo of battle.

[-To sum up, Jormungand Citadel fires a Seventh-Circle spell. And it is impossible to respond to it. The preparation time required to format magic with such power is about twelve hours.]

The King of Adeina, who had suffered immensely due to the white beam, spoke with a trembling voice.

[-I insist on preemptive strikes rather than maintaining a siege and attempting to pressure the Outsiders.]

“Launching an all-out assault risks our advantage. Are you suggesting we give that up and take on additional risk?”

[-It is dangerous to stall for time now. No matter the cost, it’s much more realistic to engage in a decisive battle than continue taking massive casualties every twelve hours.]

[-I agree. We can’t let them continue to blast us forever.] [-Then we have reached a conclusion.]

At some point, the King of Divide had begun to lead the meeting.

[-Before the enemy’s attacks slaughter all of the soldiers of our Allied Forces, let’s attack the enemy first and defeat their homunculus.]

Many participants agreed with King Divide’s opinion, and before too long, they reached a consensus.

They decided to launch a preemptive strike.

“The remaining time until the next beam attack is ten hours.”

[-The goal is to defeat the homunculus located somewhere within the Jormungand Citadel before that time limit runs out.]

Once the goal had been set, the discussion moved on to how it could be achieved.

Fortunately, the Allied Forces had already surrounded the Outsiders from all sides. It was possible for them to send elite guerrilla units from any side.

However, it wasn’t that simple in practice. Any guerilla unit attempting to break through the

southern front would need to make their way past the elite forces of the Outsiders. These elite soldiers had retreated to this position after being pushed back from the central battle line.

On the other hand, the barbarians still remained on the northern battle line.

Donape Aslan, who had lost a large portion of his men to the first strike, was entirely consumed by rage. He had thrown himself into non-stop battle ever since. This ruled the northern battle line out too, since he was beyond allied control now.

As a result, the growing consensus was to just leave the northern battle line to Donape and maintain the status quo at the southern battle line. This would leave the eastern and western flanks open for hit-and-run tactics.

“So the problem is who we will dispatch?”

All that remained was deciding who would make up the guerilla units.

The discussion continued for a long time before King Divide opened his mouth.

[-On our side, some of us are of the opinion that we should use the Starling Party of the Hebrion Empire.]

[-The Starling Party has already proved their ability by performing excellently on several occasions. They are a student party with knighthood qualification, but their skills can be said to be beyond that.]

The officers of the Imperial Army felt the conversation becoming increasingly inconvenient. They had lost the initiative, and desperately looked for a way to steer the conversation to safety. They didn’t want to consign such precious talent to almost certain death.

[-Definitely, Desir of the Starling Party has enough skill to take on this mission.] [-There are few people who can produce more firepower than the Starling Party.] However, the opinions of the Western Kingdom Union were sufficiently overwhelming.

There was no choice but to accept this proposal unless the officers of the Imperial Army could quickly figure out something with a better chance of success.

“… … Okay. I will inform them of this mission.”

* * *

“What do you think?”

They were in Colonel Yuta’s office.

Desir looked at the picture held out in front of him. It was a picture of a terrible scene of destruction. The aftermath of the white beam.

In the place where the light swept through, there were marks left behind as if a huge claw had gouged out the ground.

Desir studied the photo carefully. “It’s the work of a homunculus.”

An immediate conclusion. It was the only being that could cause misery beyond all common sense.

“You’re right. The attack is fired every twelve hours, so we guess they need some time to recover power. The strength of the attack is exactly as depicted here.”

Yuta tapped the picture. His light tap seemed to be infused with a variety of unpleasant emotions.

“The Allied Forces are in a hurry to launch a full-scale war before any further damage is incurred. While the main forces are pushing up the battle line quickly, they plan to also form guerrilla units to infiltrate the Jormungand Citadel.”

It was quite a wise judgment. As it turned out, there was no better way to end this fast. It was better to make a quick offensive.

“The guerrilla troops will be divided into two groups, one will infiltrate from the east flank, and the other via the west flank. And we would like the Starling Party to join the guerrillas that will infiltrate from the east.”

“You hold us in high regard.”

“Because no other unit has achieved as good of results as yours. Above all, I don’t think there is a more suitable group of candidates for guerrilla units. We need to move with as few people as possible, and they must be the cream of the crop.”

Desir nodded. He also felt there was no one else as capable as they were, when working as a small group of elites.

“We have decided to leave the command of the eastern guerrilla units to you. We evaluated your ability to lead and issue commands in prior situations, and decided such…”

Up until now, Desir was constrained by the chain of command. Whenever he required the cooperation of anyone in the military, he had to ask the right people who would then escalate the issue up the hierarchy of seniority.

This became a critical weakness in urgent situations. The attack on Mahayu Harbor was a key example; they could have instantaneously lost the war as a result of wasted time…

However, this kind of problem was solved by joining the chain of command directly at a senior level.

Yuta turned his full attention on Desir. “Defeat the homunculus and end this war.”

* * *

“Nice to meet you. I’m Desir Arman, leader of the Starling Party. I will be leading this eastern unit.”

The east unit had forty people in total, including the Starling Party members.

The average power level of its participants was very high. The swordsmen were at least at the Rook Class and the magicians were all at least at the Fourth-Circle.

“Our mission is to defeat the homunculus hiding in the Jormungand Citadel. I will divide this group into four units to increase the efficiency of this mission.”

The power of the east guerrilla unit was high enough that it wouldn’t be a mistake to refer to them as the core of the Imperial Army deployed on the eastern battle line.

These people were all hand-picked for this specific mission. Combined, they offered the ideal composition to get the job done.

The other unique aspect of this detachment was that quite a few of the members were from the Hebrion Academy.

It seemed like central command had kept Desir in mind, and tried to give him a unit that would ideally already know him.

‘Argeria is also here.’ Argeria G Rogran Nimbias.

Amongst his cohort, he was the top single ranker in his third-year class, and was also known as the strongest swordsman of the academy. To top it all off, he was the leader of the Blue Moon Party.

Argeria had attempted to slow down Desir in the Party Competition, but when things went awry, he was also the first person amongst the arrogant nobles to acknowledge Desir’s capability and put their lives in his hands.

‘I guess we will fight together again, as soldier and student this time.’

Argeria had joined the military and was currently a cadet candidate. After judging his ability, he seemed to have attracted quite a bit of attention as a hopeful prospect.

When his eyes met with Desir’s, he nodded. This gesture indicated that he acknowledged Desir as the commander, and didn’t feel the need to express it openly.

After a short briefing, the squad members scattered. There seemed to be no complaints amongst them even though Desir, who was younger than them, had assumed control.

“This battle should be rather easy, for a change.”

Romantica expressed her opinion in a casual manner, as if announcing a foregone conclusion. “If it all goes to plan, it may be possible to defeat the homunculus without any problem.” Desir could only respond wryly to Romantica setting such a death flag. Deep down though, he expected that this mission to eliminate the homunculus had a high chance of success, since the force at his disposal was incredibly high-spec for such a mission.

As the two exchanged such frivolities, someone else interjected. “Desir Arman. The great hero of the Empire.”

Desir looked in the direction of the voice. A young man with slicked-back hair approached.

“I am very pleased to be able to join such a magician as you in battle. It’s especially awesome since we are both from the Hebrion Academy. There are very few people that have achieved anything near what you have, especially while in their junior years at the academy.”

Sardek Genoisa.

He was a Fifth-Circle magician in his mid-thirties, and an alumnus of the Hebrion Academy. He drew close to Desir with a friendly smile plastered onto his face.