Although we dwarves are famous for our physical attributes of being small, stocky, and hairy, we were not always like this. About 2 million years ago, we dwarves actually looked like the humans. We only came to look like this after hundreds of thousands of years living in the mountains. Living in dark cold small tunnels favored the traits of being hairy and small. In addition, with the amount of mining necessary to keep up our livelihood, it was necessary for us to be strong. Living in the mountains with nothing to do drove a desire for us to place excess energy into honing our skills in crafting and smithing. However, this information is quite unsettling to many dwarves resulting in these records never being discussed. The reason being is that our ancestors never wanted to go to the mountains out of their own free will. Some event forced the dwarves 2 million years ago to go under the mountain. What happened?

- Dwarven King Gargan the Third

Descal

"To think that you would actually lead your men into battle, Cecilia. You always were someone who preferred to hide and let others do the dirty work for you. What changed?" (Farrago)

My squad of 12 men lined up beside me while his squad of 10 soldiers lined up as well about 20 meters ahead of us. Cecilia walked up and with her head held high, she confronted Farrago. However, I could easily tell that it was really false bravado because of her foot swinging little small loops. After being with her for a couple months, I realized she only did that when she was really nervous.

"Times have changed. So, it is only fitting that I change with it as well." (Cecilia)

"That is true. Poetic even. However, I am not so naive to believe that someone can so easily change. And even if you have changed, you must answer for all those crimes you have committed. And the cumulative punishment for all of those crimes is death." (Farrago)

While listening to the conversation, I make sure that my Royal Guards don't have any ideas of double-crossing Cecilia. Although I have made sure about the vetting procedure, I am still unsure of how they would take the news that Cecilia was responsible for a lot of people's deaths. Of course, I still told them parts of the truth... More like Cecilia made me memorize and regurgitate a speech filled with half-lies and logical fallacies that she prepared herself... They could still change their minds if they end up learning the whole truth and believe it. Then again, they don't know what is the truth.

Of course, I did worry that Cecilia's uncle would try to ruin Cecilia's reputation by telling the entire country of her misdeeds, but Cecilia assured me that her uncle couldn't do it because of Cecilia's recent and extremely publicized actions of being the champion of the people. Cecilia is amazing at politics. I was surprised myself when she explained all the steps that she took to make sure that any attempt at spreading rumors of her past deeds and attempting to connect her with the deaths would only end up backfiring. For example, the commoners already like her as is and any rumors that try to discredit her would be immediately met with suspicion that it is a ploy by the nobles to discredit the "fair and wonderful" Queen Cecilia.

Other nobles don't really care since Cecilia made sure to indebt them into her service with economic benefits and assisting them with political weddings and land grabs. For example, when she ruined a noble house, she always made sure that there was someone to pick up the crumbs, and it was always someone that she had a lot of control over. Then, there are the loyalist nobles who trusted the now dead King with his decision, no matter how questionable.

Of course, it also helped that Cecilia made sure to cover up her tracks extremely well so that there is no evidence at all. As a result, the nobles who actually believe her uncle are nobles who want to believe that Cecilia is the culprit. Seriously, Cecilia is a terrifying politician. Almost makes up for her being a shitty soldier. Don't get me wrong. She did do "pretty well" in the cavalry charge, but I totally noticed how she was deliberately and ever so slightly using me as her meat shield. She knew how to balance how much of a show she should put on vs. her hiding behind me. Bitch. You are an excellent actor.

While Cecilia was busy stroking that dumbass General's ego and getting as much information she could from him talking too much, I made a signal by tapping my leg armor three times to indicate we were going with plan C. I noticed that Farrago was getting annoyed at Cecilia at the amount of information that she managed to squeeze out from him (Oh. He isn't that dumb. He did notice at least.), and he looked ready to pounce any moment. Plan C was that I drag the General out of the fight and the Royal Guards would protect Cecilia while I was occupied. Cecilia will provide covering fire while the Guards engage the enemy squad.

It will be 3 solo golds and 9 silvers (my team) vs. 6 solo golds and 4 silvers, but the 4 silvers form one gold level group. Ah. I better explain what the difference is between a solo gold rank and a group gold rank is, shouldn't I? Since it is very rare for many people to get above the gold rank level, mercenaries have implemented a group system as well. Even though the group may be completely filled with silvers, if the group has excellent teamwork that can accomplish what a solo gold rank individual can do, the group will be considered gold ranked. And this applies true for every level. I remember a thousand years ago that there was a mercenary group that had a 50 member bronze level group, but it was able to reach platinum group level because of the leader's excellent strategies. He was an extreme pain in the ass to deal with. I only managed to beat that stupid mercenary group by trapping them in an annihilation siege, and they got wiped out by a forbidden level magic spell.

That was why I wasn't really going for powerful individuals for Cecilia's Royal Guard since I thought I could train them to increase their power levels to silver and have them work together to form a gold level group. Sadly, I ran out of time, and I later realized that I had no idea how to increase their teamwork.

I am positive that my Royal Guards are going to get their ass handed to them should we fight, but they should be able to stall for time.

I noticed that Farrago reached his tipping point, and I intercepted him when he did a mad dash at Cecilia. I jumped off my horse, smashed into him with magic empowered legs, and skidded along the ground until we came to a stop at the next hill. He quickly threw me off and swiped at me with his sword which I promptly dodged.

Even though I had enhanced all my physical and mental traits as far as I could with my magic, he was still keeping up with me. Actually, he still surpassed me in speed and reflexes by a little bit.

Uggh. I really wished that I could use abyss magic right now, but I can't use that magic very well when I am in a body. I need to be in my original form to utilize it effectively. Not only that, I don't need to expose my strongest magic for the very first general we will see. As a result, I am stuck using regular old theoretical magic. I fired a couple of fireballs at him to test how good he is, and he managed to reflect them back at me with his sword. He really lives up to that platinum level for sure.

However, now isn't the time for admiration. Before he gets time to recover from the small barrage, I immediately shrink the distance and try to stab him with my blades. He quickly recovers from his shock that a mage is shortening the distance, and happily meets my charge, by deflecting my attempt and countering me with a slash. After the initial exchange, we begin a furious dance.

"Why a mage that is capable of chantless magic is trying to fight me in close combat is something that I will never understand. Another thing is how you are able to keep up with me." (Farrago)

With those words, he twists his sword to smack my arm upwards before making a swipe at my legs. I avoid it by jumping up and kicking him with both my legs, resulting in both of us falling down. I quickly recover and try to stab him once more, but he rolls away.

"Just practicing. It's always good to expand your horizons." (Descal)

"Good! I like men like you. Why are you working for someone like her?" (Farrago)

"To test something. Now shut up." (Descal)

Angry, he grabs my wrist after another failed stab, tosses me into the air before jumping up himself and slashes at me. I block it by crossing my blades, but I couldn't stop the momentum as he smacks me down to the ground. I roll away from his follow up stomp and charge him again.

I grab his sword arm and try to uppercut him with my blade, but he dodges it by pulling his head back and proceeds to headbutt me. While I was winded by the pain, he ends up stabbing me in the chest.

"Fool. How dare you underestimate me." (Farrago)

"Hehe." (Descal)

I stand up despite a sword piercing my chest. The body I am using is a homunculus. So, mere stab wounds aren't enough to kill me. Farrago widens his eyes before I stab him through his chest with his own sword.

"Why do I have to use my full strength against cannon fodder like you? Cecilia told me that you are the weakest general. Of course, I am not gonna use magic against you. No need to show the enemy what I am capable of at the start of the fight. Although, you taught me something. My close combat skills are nothing compared to a sword master who spent years mastering the sword even if I supplement my body with magic. Gonna have to keep that in mind. Go die now." (Descal)

I kicked him to unsheathe his sword from his body, and I watched him bleed out onto the grass as I took a look at the surroundings. Holy shit. We really destroyed the environment. Apparently, every time we hit each other and crossed blades, we apparently sent out massive shockwaves. Patches of holes here and there. Two giant craters over there. Whoops. We went really far from the battlefield. After stripping the corpse of everything valuable and dumping it into my storage, I quickly start messing with the gravitational and magnetic lines around the planet so it becomes possible for me to float. Once I got the balance just right, I applied my will to create a wind blast behind me. I quickly started flying toward where Cecilia was.

Once I got there, I realized that I really didn't have much to fear. My guards were actually winning because of Cecilia's support. Once more, she surprises me with her accuracy as she shoots a sword that is about to swipe down on one of her guards or she creates an opening by forcing one of the guards to dodge a bullet. The enemy silver guards were already wiped out from what seems to be bullet wounds. It makes sense. After all, only gold ranks would have the ability to dodge bullets.

Although, I wonder if they would be able to dodge faster bullets? Black powder isn't that good for bullet speed nor is the current gun's metal strong enough to handle higher pressure. If I replaced it with a much better propellant and a stronger metal for the gun, the bullet could go at least the speed of sound. I doubt a gold rank can dodge that. A platinum rank might be able to dodge such a bullet, but he or she would need to be extremely high on the spectrum. Of course, all mythrils should be able to dodge it since mythrils have the ability to comprehend at extremely fast speeds that during battle they see everything in slow motion. Now whether they have the reflexes to catch up with such speeds is another matter, but most of them should be able to unless they are huge and bulky like dragons. In those cases, they have confidence in their defenses. Eh. I will experiment more with it later.

Man. Cecilia has really grown from when I first met her. She went from pissing her pants to actually keeping her cool on the battlefield and contributes to the fight. I think I will sit this one out. It will be a good learning experience, and she may have to take to the front lines multiple times in the future.

Oh. A gold rank managed to kill one of our silvers and is charging at Cecilia. I was going to go down and stop him, but I was curious on how Cecilia would react to this. I should be able to go down fast enough if it gets bad, but if I fail, well, it is disappointing, but it will be time to move on.

Cecilia with no time to reload goes into her bayonet stance. Although Cecilia was able to block the first strike, she couldn't keep up with the second and third strikes. Just when I was going to step in, Cecilia deliberately slammed her shoulder into the sword, causing the blade to go straight through her shoulder. Then, she grabbed the sword hand to keep it stuck, pulled out a pistol and shot her opponent in the head.

As I floated down next to her, I started clapping.

"You can fly?" (Cecilia)

"Been practicing in secret. Turns out the secret wasn't with simply weakening the gravity field, but also..." (Descal)

"That's great and all. But in case you haven't noticed... I have a fu... I have a sword in my shoulder! Get over here and help me take it out!" (Cecilia)

"Yeah. Yeah." (Descal)

I grabbed the hilt of the sword and asked Cecilia if she was ready. I said on the count of three I was going to remove the sword, but, of course, to be a dick, I removed the sword when I said three. I have always wanted to do that. With the sword out of her, Cecilia bent over with her hand on her shoulder with a high pitched muffled scream as she began to rock back and forth in a fetal position. I placed myself in front of her so the Royal Guards, who were surprisingly winning the fight, couldn't see the pitiful sight of their Queen, and I knelt down.

"Oye. Snap out of it. You're the Queen. The battlefield isn't the place for whatever the hell you are doing." (Descal)

"You treated me nicer when we were journeying together. What happened to that guy?" (Cecilia)

"That was before I knew that you were capable of mass murder without batting an eyebrow. Now get the hell up." (Descal)

Oh, my. Cecilia was a mess. There were snot and tears all over her face. Not to mention all the blood everywhere. The blood flowing from were shoulder was dying her armor and the tips of her hair red. Then, when she tried to wipe off her tears with her bloodied hand, she ended up smothering blood all over her face. In the end, she looked like someone threw a bucket of blood and tears on her face.

"Hmmm. I have just enough bandages to wrap your shoulder with. Now, hold still." (Descal)

Cecilia began wincing in pain as I took off parts of her armor and began doing some shoddy first aid on her wound.

"Ow. Have you ever done this before?" (Cecilia)

"No. Never needed to." (Descal)

"Way to inspire confidence. How did the fight with "Mirror" Farrago go?" (Cecilia)

"Got stabbed in the chest. The fact that he could reflect magic meant that I needed to enter close combat with him. Of course, I could overpower him with powerful magical spells, but that would mean showing off some of my trump cards extremely early in the war." (Descal)

"You okay?" (Cecilia)

"Cecilia. My body isn't really alive. It's a homunculus. Did you forget that?" (Descal)

"But you can still feel pain right?" (Cecilia)

"Yeah. Yeah. Who cares about pain? All I care about is not have my container die, and I can't die from a normal wound in this body. The only way to kill me would be destroying the stabilizer in my body. Now, let's finish this up so we can get you treated properly, and I can fix this hole in my body." (Descal)

"Now that I think about it, how are you so big even though you are a homunculus. Aren't they supposed to be tiny?" (Cecilia)

"This world's alchemists focuses too much on the magical concepts instead of physical concepts. You can only go so far with magic if your base is super weak." (Descal)

"Yeah. Yeah. Like you always say, "Magic is only limited by imagination. Imagination starts from knowledge." So, the more you know the basics, the stronger your magic will be." (Cecilia)

"Well, it looks like the Royal Guards finished up." (Descal)

The Royal Guards looked beat up as hell after the fight. They were all panting, bruised, and bleeding. Or they were dead. It turns out only seven survived the fight. We really need to add in a healer and a mage to our group. I have reluctance with healers because many are under the Church of Light's jurisdiction, and those that are not with the church aren't common. That and the "purge" by the church a century ago of killing a bunch of village witches did not help. Of course, good mages are hard to get in the first place cause of how rare they are and most are either mercenaries, military, or research mages. Although I could recruit a weak mage and have them undergo training, this would require time and money.

Maybe I will find time after the war... Nah. After this war ends, I am going to leave anyway. Go explore some more. Come back five years later to see how well the country is doing. Kill Cecilia if the country suffers under her rule. I wonder where I should explore next? Maybe I should go check out the sea.

While everyone was drinking water and dressing their wounds, Cecilia and I were discussing the aftereffects of releasing my seal.

"So. Your mana output can't be higher than a bronze level for how long now?" (Cecilia)

"I have had the seal released for about two hours so the cooldown would be four hours." (Descal)

"I see. So how long can you turn off the seal?" (Cecilia)

"It felt like the diamond can hold up for about a week before it would explode. Anyway, I am going to be vulnerable for four hours now." (Descal)

"Vulnerable! That's hilarious. If it really came down to it, you will just destroy your body and return to your original form again." (Cecilia)

"And how poorly do you think it will reflect on you when people realize you teamed up with the Emperor? The cause of the First Calamity?" (Descal)

"Pretty badly. But, it won't stop you from reverting anyway." (Cecilia)

"No. Mainly because I would have no choice. Once my container dies, I am going to revert whether I want to or not." (Descal)

"Your Highness. Captain. The Guards are ready." (Dob)

"Good. Let's go." (Descal)

With that, we began our gallop to the center to see how the battle was going. Surprisingly, it turned into a stalemate since the enemy managed to regroup. The cavalry was pushed back since the enemy pikemen were using the ponds to their advantage while our infantry was desperately holding the chokepoint. The battle could turn in any direction any moment. It seems that Cecilia realized this as well cause she immediately started galloping forward screaming, "To me! Rally to me! For the Ruhan Kingdom!"

With those words, we immediately began chasing after Cecilia screaming as loud as we could as we came down upon the pike wall. The pikemen were already exhausted and tired from the previous run, and morale was low. Combine this with a girl covered in blood charging at them while screaming like she went med, caused the line to start breaking. Cornelia immediately took advantage of the distraction that Cecilia gave and pierced an opening with her own squad.

WIth the pikewall broken, the infantry broke, and the enemy began running for the forest so that the cavalry would have a harder time pursuing them. Knowing that it would be suicidal to continue pursuing them, I ordered a bugle to sound the halt signal. Combined with Cornelia's screaming and Cecilia's presence, we managed to halt the reckless charge.

It wasn't a moment to soon cause from within the forest multiple explosions could be heard as well as the scent of smoke. Soon screams and cries of pain began ringing out of the forest. Everyone paused to listen to the sounds and began to sniff the air.

"Descal? What's going on?" (Cecilia)

Everyone who was nearby heard what Cecilia said and looked at me.

"Traps. With how many men are retreating into the forest so quickly, they are going to trigger more traps. Some of the traps were explosives. I also used a lot of oil traps in the forest to make it harder for men to run and change direction in certain places. Explosions tend to send out sparks. I suggest we move away from the forest cause a forest fire is incoming." (Descal)

Everyone who heard me gulped and orders were given out to get away from the forest. An hour later, a forest fire was raging across the trees. Any survivor who came running out of the flaming death trap was captured. Any survivors who resisted was quickly put to death.

While Cecilia was busy listening to all the reports of casualties, supplies, and prisoners of war, I was standing 50 meters from the burning forest. Watching it burn down. I took a deep breath and said,

"Ahhh. So this is the smell of victory." (Descal)