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The Nearest Temple

When Alissa regained her consciousness this time, she only vaguely recalled how she had reacted on instinct and bodily shielded a couple others from the explosion. The blast was powerful, and she recalled seeing how the fourth tier who jumped in to subdue the demon [Great Champion] was directly vaporized by the blast.

Apparently it had been powerful enough to kill her as well, and probably others who were too close to the explosion when it happened.

Fortunately, this time her soulbound artifact – the one she received on her last visit to the capital, which was said to allow her to “bond” other items through it – worked as advertised, and she didn’t wake up naked like she usually did. She did notice some things missing, things too minor to actually bond to her soul like underwear and the likes, but her armor and clothes – which were heavily enchanted and protective as well – were all still there, as were her weapons.

She woke up to the sight of the healers – including Leda, Cerilla, and Vesta – busily trying to stabilize and heal the injuries of those who took the most damage from the explosion yet survived. It made sense, as none of them could help the dead after all. That said, there seemed to be less dead than Alissa had expected, though there were quite a few injured.

“Dame O’Connor! Glad to see you back with us once more!” greeted Sir Marsten as he noticed Alissa’s reappearance. The old knight himself was positioned quite close to the explosion, and from the soot-covered state of his armor and the way every bit of the hair on his head– including his facial hair and eyebrows – had been burnt off, with some burn marks still healing, had taken the brunt of the blast as well.

Fortunately the old knight was more of a highly durable physical fighter class-wise, and so he survived the explosion without too much damage, other than his hair and some burns, the former of which would regrow after some time anyway. The man was not quite as tough as Ethan, but he was tougher than Alissa herself, and wasn’t already injured like her to boot.

“How is everyone?” Alissa asked to the old Knight. She spotted Joshua already some distance to her right, around where he was killed just before the explosion happened. He likely only [Respawn]ed recently, given how he was still in the middle of putting on his clothes. Neither Ethan nor Joshua had a convenient item to bond their clothing to them the way she did, after all.

“Three dead, around fourteen injured,” replied Sir Marsten honestly to her question. “That’s not counting you and Sir Smith, of course. Honestly, we’d likely have lost more people if not for you and Sir Greene taking part of the blast with your own bodies. We owe you a bit for that, and some of us literally owe you our lives, so I say, thank you, Dame O’Connor.”

The way the old knight addressed Alissa was notably more respectful than before. Perhaps in his eyes she had proven herself qualified to be a [Hero], or perhaps it was because she helped save some of his people, at a cost to herself. She wasn’t sure which. Given how few of the injured she noticed around them, chances were that only the badly injured – those too injured to be moved – were being treated right there, while the lightly injured were already moved away.

Ethan was amongst the heavily injured, his greater durability once again keeping him alive despite the circumstances, though he clearly wasn’t enjoying it, given the wounds he suffered this time around. He looked Alissa’s way when he noticed her return and gave her a slight smile, though one marred by a painful grimace from his many injuries.

Sir Inolet had apparently already left to oversee the work at the demon encampment. Now that they had broken through the valley, the humans had every intention to make use of the encampment as their foothold, after some remodeling work to improve its defenses, of course. Due to the natural ability of many of their kind to climb vertical walls almost like they were walking on flat ground, demons rarely put much value in fortifications compared to the humans.

When Alissa had learned about that she had questioned whether it shouldn’t have been the other way around instead, that the humans would be the ones less dependent on fortifications since their enemies were less affected by it while the demons should be building more since the humans would face a harder time assaulting a fortification.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

It turned out that the same also held true with fighting in and from such fortifications.

The demons were ill-suited to defend a fortification as their generally more individualistic nature made it harder for them to maintain the same sort of cohesion and discipline the humans could, an issue that naturally amplified itself on the narrow walkways of a fortress. That combined with the generally aggressive nature of most demons meant that they were better suited for the offense rather than the defense to begin with.

As for the humans, while they know that fortifications wouldn’t pose much of an obstacle to some demons, they operated under the concept that every little bit counted, and indeed, fortifications would still improve their ability to defend against demon assault significantly. On the other hand, trying to defend an open camp from a demon assault was akin to committing suicide.

“So we fucked that mission up in the end, huh?” muttered Alissa quietly as she sat slouched next to Ethan, who was still being taken care of by one of the junior healers from the fort. Likely they all realized that he was so durable that his injuries, while horrible, were not life-threatening and besides he would just [Respawn] if they were proven wrong anyway, so the better healers were dedicated to those with more dangerous injuries instead.

“I wouldn’t say so, Dame O’Connor,” interjected Sir Marsten before Ethan could reply. Even though Alissa spoke quietly, the fourth tier knight clearly had enough perception to notice her words even from the distance. “It was always more of a wishful thinking to capture one of the [Champions], much less a [Great Champion], this early in the war cycle. Still, it was a chance we couldn’t ignore.”

“While the demon escaped our hands, we still achieved a great deal today, far more than what we expected, in fact,” continued the old knight in a mollifying tone. “We have broken through the valley and gained a foothold in the Demon Territories, on top of inflicting heavy casualties to the demon army. Neither of those are minor achievements, and none of them would have been possible without you and your party’s help.”

“We didn’t do that much,” Ethan pointed out. Alissa nodded in agreement with him. All the three of them did was that they pretty much attempted to ambush the [Mother of Monsters] and failed to cripple her. Then again, now that they learned of the woman’s skillset, they felt that capturing the woman while she had any undead around her would be difficult at best.

After all, she could self-destruct a corpse and kill herself with such ease.

“No, you did plenty, young [Heroes],” replied the old knight with a shake of his now-bald head. “Had we pulled off the same strategy without you or your party helping us, we might have reached the demon encampment, but then we would have been overwhelmed due to the abominations. Not even Henri’s presence would be enough to turn the tables against that many foes had there not been others to occupy their attention.”

“Instead, we not only defeated the demons but also directly took over their camp, all while losing only seven of our own, three of which had been the [Great Champion]’s victims at that,” continued the veteran knight with a slightly sad smile. “It was an acceptable price for such a victory, and I’m sure those who laid down their lives are pleased with what we achieved thanks to their sacrifice.”

“We wouldn’t have considered a victory with that many casualties a victory where we came from,” commented Alissa bitterly from the side. The knowledge that seven of the fourth tiers from the fort had passed away during the battle naturally bothered her. Left unsaid was the number of the lower tier soldiers who must have also given their lives in the course of the battle. “We even have a term for it: Pyrrhic Victory.”

“It might be different where you came from, Dame O’Connor,” said the old knight with a shrug. “What I do know for certain is that today we have won probably the biggest victory the Kingdom had over the demons for over… many generations. We had been losing the last three wars after all, so it was mostly loss after loss for us over the past two centuries or so.”

“The demons lost fifteen of their fourth tiers today, two of which were amongst their most powerful ones,” elaborated Sir Marsten when he noticed that Alissa still seemed unconvinced. “You killed one of them with your own hands, a feat most worthy of a [Hero], while Henri got another. That alone would be a blow to our opponents, not counting the rest we killed.”

Even after the old knight’s reassurance, Alissa still looked a little bit lost as she looked at the three bodies that had been covered with fabric. The three fourth tiers unfortunate enough to have perished from the demon [Great Champion]’s skill. She noticed that the male half of the fourth tier couple she had fought alongside that one time knelt by one of the bodies, his tear-streaked face dull and full of dismay, looking as if his soul had left his body.

The look of grief and despair etched on his features made her feel ashamed to look at him any longer than that.

How many others were like the poor man? How many others had lost their family, friends, or loved ones just in the course of this single battle alone? She couldn’t even help thinking about the demons that willingly gave their lives to cover the retreat of others. Surely they too have families, friends, and loved ones, no?

The demons had clearly shown that they cared for each other to some degree. The decision to allow the younger demons in their late third tiers to escape first might have been pragmatic, but she didn’t fail to notice that the demons also allowed all the other youngsters to escape first, while the elderly stayed behind to buy time with their lives.

Even if the humans and demons of this world had millennia of bloodshed and hatred to build their animosity against each other on, she was a visitor from another world. She lacked any such animosity and couldn’t help but to imagine herself in the enemy’s shoes at times. Even if it was true that the only way to return home was to cooperate with the local humans, she couldn’t help but think of other possibilities.

That included possibilities like the locals actually fooling her to participate in their war, dangling a ticket back to her world as the reward, if there was any such thing to begin with. It was one reason she chose the classes she did, and did what she could in trying to learn more about this world together with Ethan, who also held similar doubts in his mind.

With a sigh, Alissa stood up at last. Even though the thoughts weigh on her mind, she knew that it wasn’t the right time to act on them yet. She still knew too little. She didn’t even have any alternative ideas about what to do. It was something she would still need to work around, somehow, someway, without incurring the suspicion of others.

She sighed at the thought of the long road ahead of her.