From the royal capital, Alissa and the rest of the party took a carriage to head to the frontlines in the south. By coincidence, there was a convoy also headed to the front around that time, and the carriage traveled along with the convoy. Given the incident with the demon infiltrators back then, security inside the Kingdom had been raised, so nobody begrudged the extra security from traveling together.
The convoy they traveled with included nearly ten thousand soldiers who were being sent from the inner regions to the frontlines as reinforcements, as well as many more wagons full of rations and other supplies. While the vast majority of the soldiers were in their second or at best, early third tier levels, there were still some elites with them, like a group of well-armored knights that were mostly in their late third tiers, led by several fourth tier individuals.
Even so, Alissa couldn’t help but notice how simple the classes those fourth tiers have. Probably because she gained [See no Falsehoods], she could now naturally discern the tier of quality of whatever she used [Analysis] on of late. That included other people’s classes, which was how she found out just how truly rare her group was.
Naturally, the ones with the highest quality classes were herself, Ethan, and Joshua, followed by the [Companions] and [Associates]. Sir Inolet’s first two classes were pretty normal, but his third and fourth tier ones were just a touch below the [Associates]’s classes in quality, while Magus Drummond was another notch below that.
Cerilla’s new fourth tier class – which she gained from helping heal the party up during their training so far – was about as good as Magus Drummond’s, while Vesta’s was a good bit below that, but still above-average in quality compared to most. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the people in the army Alissa saw had classes with average or below average quality, with even the fourth tiers barely above the average quality-wise.
During their recent batch of training Alissa had asked to Sir Inolet why the fighting even involved soldiers still in the second tier when those at the higher tiers were clearly exponentially more powerful than them. She couldn’t truly fathom the reason for the soldiers, who would barely be able to contribute much, to even be there when any higher tier combatant could slaughter them practically at will.
The answer she received was a blunt one. That while higher tier combatants were powerful, they were still humans, in the end. Even if it wasn’t difficult for them to slaughter large amounts of lower tier foes, it wouldn’t be without any expenditure of strength, stamina, or mana. What if the other side willingly made use of their lower tiers to tire out one’s high-tier combatants before committing to the assault?
For that reason, those of the lower tiers were still needed in the frontlines, in order to respond to the enemy’s lower tier combatants more appropriately rather than relying too much on the higher tier combatants. Neither side wanted their best trump cards to be too exhausted from dealing with the small fry and potentially lose a fight against their peers because of it.
Ethan had made an analogy and compared the higher tier combatants to modern day main battle tanks. They were powerful and would defeat just about anything weaker with ease, but should they go overboard, they might end up in an embarrassing situation where they encountered an enemy tank but found themselves out of ammunition because they had gone on a killing spree already.
Even though a high-tier combatant could do far more, they remained one person, and couldn’t be in multiple places at the same time. It was unfeasible to expect them to do everything on their own, and thus a supporting team of other soldiers remained necessary, one way or another. Everybody has their limits, after all.
While they traveled to the frontlines, they also received further updates from the front. While one of the [Champions] had shown himself since over a month ago, nobody had seen neither hide nor hair of the others, at least, until very recently. The latest report they received stated that another two [Champions], or people suspected to be [Champions], had appeared on the battlefield less than a week ago.
There were no descriptions of their appearance, as nobody had managed to get close enough to either of them to confirm their status. Unlike the previous [Champion] who rode his mount and led the charge from the very front, the other two did not fight directly. Given that they were protected heavily in the middle of the enemy formation, it was difficult to get confirmation about them. The only hint that they might be [Champions] was that the skills they displayed was nothing like anyone had ever seen the demons use before.
One of them seemed to specialize in large-scale buff skills, as entire companies and battalions of demons around their presence would fight with extreme ferocity that was beyond what people of their levels should be capable of. The suspected [Champion] in question also seemed to be quite skilled in tactics and leadership, though they had not been seen leading from the front, commanding from the back lines instead.
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The other suspected [Champion] was likely a necromancer, who created undead abominations that fought in their stead. Necromancers were a rather rare class, but were not unknown. Even so, the necromancers people knew about mostly reanimated dead bodies and used them like puppets. What the suspected [Champion] did was to sculpt monstrosities out of many different dead bodies, both people and monsters. Those abominations were far more dangerous than what their low level indicated, which was a likely sign that they were created by a [Champion].
While nobody had managed to get close enough to the suspected [Champions] to confirm their identities, the fact that they were not only heavily guarded – with even fourth tier demons guarding them – and had such unusual skills were clues that pointed to their likely identities. Even if some young demons received unusual classes, they would not be guarded to such an extent.
As a direct result of the possible appearance of the new [Champions], however, the tide on the frontlines had gone in the demons’ favor of late. The Kingdom had naturally sent out reinforcements, including the batch that now traveled with Alissa’s party. Even so, it was only enough to barely hold on, and not enough to turn the situation around as yet.
That point was made obvious to them when the convoy passed a different one headed towards the interior of the Kingdom from the frontlines. What the other convoy carried… were bags filled with ashes from the dead soldiers on the frontlines, to be returned to their families. There were also a few coffins, a privilege for those rich or powerful enough to afford having the dead bodies of their relatives returned to them.
When the [Heroes] saw the wagons full of ashes and coffins, their faces paled somewhat at the implication. There were at least ten thousand or more people’s worth of remains in the convoy they passed, easily a similar number as the people that were headed towards the frontline with them. The accidental symmetry of around ten thousand bags of ashes and a couple dozen coffins with their convoy’s makeup made some of them feel a chill on their backs.
A very blatant reminder of just how many people perished in the war that kept happening between the humans and the demons, and that they could very easily be amongst that number as well.
As such, the mood amongst the convoy was somber when they approached Fort Ixlay, one of the largest forts in the southern end of the Kingdom’s current territory. The large fortification had room to accommodate up to fifty thousand soldiers and was built at a strategic location, where the enemy would not be able to bypass it without great difficulties. Even if the enemy managed to do so, they would be facing attacks to their rear from the fort’s defenders.
Instead of its full capacity of fifty thousand, however, there were only enough defenders to fill around half of the fort’s maximum capacity, with half again their number crowded in the fort’s infirmaries. The vicious fighting had taken a great toll on the defenders, as shown by their greatly diminished numbers and the large number of injured people stationed at the walls.
Normally people who were clearly still recovering from their injuries wouldn’t be stationed on duty until they were fully recovered, but the fort was clearly low on manpower. As such, those whose injuries had healed enough to allow them to return to battle in some capacity were brought back to work. Only those with more debilitating injuries were allowed to recuperate in the infirmaries.
One might wonder why so many people were still injured despite the availability of magical healing, but the fact was that there were simply too many injured and too few healers, with more injured coming in every day. The healers – most of them priests and priestesses from the temple – were simply overwhelmed by the large number of injured and they had no choice but to spread themselves thin to save as many lives as possible.
Once the convoy arrived at the fort, Leda, Cerilla, and Vesta immediately left for the infirmaries. They were primarily healers, and as such healing others were their main means of gaining experience. It was their first day at the fort and the [Heroes] would not be required to sally into combat until they had gotten themselves more used to life at the front anyway, so there were no reasons for the healers to skip out on the opportunity to not only help others but also gain more experience in the process.
Most of the time, the fighting took place in the mouth of a valley around half a kilometer to the south of the fort itself. The valley was one of the main routes that led into the human lands, with the mountain range it belonged to being a tall and treacherous one that even the demons generally balk at crossing. The fort’s defenders would guard the vicinity of the valley’s mouth and prevent their enemies from crossing into the human lands.
As for why the fort wasn’t built right against the valley’s mouth itself, it was because many demons had the ability to climb sheer cliffs with relative ease. While the extreme temperatures higher up on the mountain range still posed them with great difficulty, it would have been easy for the demons to directly climb the cliffs at the sides of the valley and assault a fortification at the valley’s mouth from above that way.
Of course, that sort of method would only be applicable to the combatants, and even the demons needed to keep their supply train going. For the wagons heavy with supplies, the valley itself was pretty much the only feasible route in the region, which made the place an important chokepoint. The demons attempted to establish a beachhead on the other side of the valley on a regular basis, while the fort’s defenders would repel them back, day after day.
Just three days before the [Heroes] arrived along with their convoy, Fort Ixlay’s defenders had a difficult battle at the valley’s mouth, as the demon [Champion] who proudly proclaimed his name as Sübügätäi had directly led a charge against them. It was only through great difficulty that the defenders managed to repel that attack, with the enemy [Champion] fighting to the death like a madman, even laughing maniacally as he eventually fell.
His example of not caring for his own safety and leading from the front had given the demons a great morale boost and courage to do the same, so the fort’s defenders only managed to hold their ground after a great many sacrifices and miserable injuries suffered by more than half of the people they had sent out that day.