As we expected, once war was declared General Ormin was deployed to defend one of the major fortress towns on the border of Rhuun. This particular town went by the name of Lysidia, and the Shirisho town of Dellriere was directly across a wide river.

That was pretty lucky. We’d have a much harder time clearing the mission if it was Trioron’s territories we had to conquer. If some nobles or whatever hoped that Ormin would fall in battle, they were going to be terrifically disappointed.

One thing I’d had drilled into me more thoroughly than others during our practice for this floor was that even when it was between soldiers as strong as those of the three 6th Floor nations, war was not a swift process. While Mewi and Anna had been making connections and getting us in with Ormin, Bruzigan, Ri’legh and Arvallei had been tracking down as many of our fellow challengers that had been placed in Rhuun as they could, with the aim of gathering them together to act nominally as Anna’s forces.

That number was half the amount who were always placed in and a mere third of those placed in Shirisho, but that still amounted to quite a few thousand challengers, all of whom had at least one caster on their teams. According to Bruzigan, very few of them had refused—grouping up so much in an area that was not likely to meet with disaster would definitely make it easier for everyone to clear their own missions—but it was impossible to cover the entire kingdom in just 3 days.

Still, a lot of teams not only agreed but agreed to spread the word to places we couldn’t personally reached, so they should be able to form a plausibly sized force. However, most of them wouldn’t be able to reach Lysidia any time soon.

Neither would Shirisho or Dellriere be able to mobilize against us immediately. They were absolutely doing so, since word of such activity had reached Lysidia fortress even before we arrived there, but counting the day war was declared as Day 4, their ships weren’t likely to set off across the river before pre-dawn Day 6.

So, I was once again left with little I could do until the evening of the fifth day of the Floor, when I cooked up some more buffing meals for the team. After that, though, it was time to put the first part of our plan into action, in which I’d finally start playing a major part in things.

That night, Mewi, Arvallei and I left the fortress for a hidden campsite Arvallei had chosen near the projected place the Shirisho ships would arrive and the troops would stage for their assault—not so near that it would be seen, of course. In fact, it was no easy place to spot even when you were fairly close, except for from the air.

Each of us had our own part to play in what we were going to do. Arvallei’s job was to keep eagle-eyes on the approaching forces, and especially to let us know the moment they marched from the riverbank. Once that happened, the first part of my job would come next.

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Of course, the three of us weren’t alone. A force of 500 battle mages who had been handpicked by General Ormin, and nearly another hundred support personnel made up the camp. Mewi would command them—that was his part to play—though of course, to ensure trust there would be an army commander on hand who had the right to question and critique his decisions.

I got what sleep I could before the alert rang through the camp that signaled Arvallei’s return. While Mewi went together with the army commander to muster the battle mages, I joined Arvallei directly, and together we made our way back to where the Shirisho transport ships were now moored.

An appallingly small portion of Shirisho’s force had stayed behind to guard the small armada. There couldn’t have been more than 50 men from what I saw. That was the thing about this whole conflict—left on their own, the three nations would never resort to the least creativity in their tactics. If that was going to happen, any ideas would come from the challengers. So, Shirisho’s forces wouldn’t even conceive of being counter-attacked in one of the very first engagements of the war, because Rhuun simply didn’t do that.

They did have enough sense to place sentry towers, but not enough to have multiple sets of them spaced around their perimeter so that if one was suddenly eliminated, the other would notice and raise the alarm. Once the battle mage force had mustered, still at a distance the sentries wouldn’t spot them from, Arvallei and I weren’t able to be very stealthy but what we were able to do was strike hard and fast. After that, the battle mage force was able to eliminate the rest of the paucity of forces there with zero casualties, with the main attacking force none the wiser.

Once Mewi and the battalion commander decided on which ships we would use for our own crossing, about a dozen other fire mages joined me in burning the rest.

I’m sure you can just about piece together the plan by now. The vast majority of forces stationed at the fortress in Dellriere had gone to attack Lysidia, expecting the forces there to do what they always do and pound away at the attackers with spells in pitched battle.

Which they would, and General Ormin’s undoubtedly rumored new ally “Lady Anna” would be seen to be there with her two most powerful bodyguards, the invaders having a tough time as a result. Meanwhile though, our force would variously steal and burn their ships, making their withdrawing from the battle a difficult prospect at best.

Then, with their full complement of troops unable to reinforce them, we would march on Dellriere. Arvallei and I would obliterate their sentries and wall defenders to avoid casualties among the battle mages, as well as engage any commanders who were still there. Mewi and the army commander would lead the battle mages to secure the fortress in full.

The closest enemy force to Dellriere would take over half a day to reach it if they performed a forced march. The next closest was much further than that. If the plan worked, we’d be able to take multiple trips of several hours across the river to develop Dellriere’s defense before Shirisho could possibly attempt to retake it. If it didn’t, we’d be well able to withdraw, and either way the casualties ought to be heavily weighted in our favor.