Chapter 290

Calling In The Big Guns

(Mallory)

Statistically their efforts to protect the land should be enough.

Right now, their forces were smaller in number, but better trained and coordinated. It was clear that the acumen of the twenty fully deployed SVC trained combat squads was undeniable. The ease with which they seemed to find holes in the magical constructs of others. Their ability to adapt to and overcome enemy movements was impressive.

Even Mallory herself found that she would often lag behind the SVC squads she went out with in an effort to support the front lines. She blamed this on needing to keep up with her two appointed bodyguards Vickard and Melkin, both of whom followed with her fluidly. Then in addition to the two bodyguards was Yarlina a communications mage, and Reagen the healer mage who chose her name as an irony of regeneration.

Slice, slink, slash.

Over and over Mallory swung her Ephemeral Scythe, which was odd, as the weapon itself was weightless, but yet, each and every swing caused her to feel more and more tired. Yet, she couldn’t help but marvel at the effectiveness of the Scythe. It cleaved through what she wanted, and evaporated into air when she wanted to avoid a friendly form that somehow thrust themself within her path.

Mentally she knew that Cass could likely give her a reason for this excessive tiredness, one that started off slowly and built to the crescendo that it was now. A deep bone-weary tiredness that seemed all consuming.

In all her years, Mallory never thought she would willingly allow her soldiers to be outgunned, but given how magical the land is here, everything requires at least tier two resources, if not tier three if and when the Pixie comes into contact.

She doesn’t mean to, but she does have the rusting effect.

The excessive effect of magic exposure that turns every item that is not directly built by her or the other master mechanics into scrap metal.

In fact, she even heard stories from the front-line troops who had enemies with weapons jamming, or showing signs of excessive degradation of materials.

A lot could be blamed on the sand, for according to everything she heard the sand here was also magical, albeit a form of magic that was not conducive to life.

Still for the first time since coming out here, since following that crazy pixie to this promised land, she breathed in the dust and didn’t flinch. Yes, her lungs had once been so corroded that she could barely breathe, only her massive Endurance let her survive.

Now though, now she, like the others wasn’t just surviving, but thriving.

Everyone here, even the newcomers, those displaced refugees had homes, jobs, and a new opportunity for peace. These were the thoughts that push Mallory through her exhaustion.

This was why she fought.

With each swing, she felt one step closer to the peaceful existence that her pixie had promised. And pixies always keep their promises.

Chuckle.

Just thinking of that, and how the pixie always managed to both tell the truth while telling nothing caused her to smile for the first time.

“You hear something good?” Vickard asked, seeing the sudden change in their commander and wondering if good news had been passed to her through her embedded earpiece.

Mallory just shook her head no, before thrusting her way forward into the heat of battle.

As she moved, she realized that even the earpieces used by the commanding officers were modified magic stones.

For a moment Mallory wondered where the earpieces came from, only to realize that this was yet another augmented enchanting item made from one of the SVC students.

Yes, rather than put the Enchanters on the front lines, it made more sense to have them back to charge weapons, items, and fix any issues that might come up.

So far, even the Enchantment + students had been invaluable.

For a moment Mallory thought about cloning Cass and letting her teach twice as many classes. Only to pause and realize that she needed to stop that train of thought, for Cass might somehow get more Simulacrums that she would set up to be teachers. What would she name such a Simulacrum, Teach-Ulacrum? Or would it be something even worse?

Honestly, Mallory wondered if some of the items were given better stats to make up for the terrible names. This thought seemed similar to the way the clothes you hated wearing most as a child always seemed to last longer than any other set of clothing you got. Mallory remembered one long pink dress with rhinestones that her mother made her wear until she finally outgrew it. Despite having other clothes that she liked better, but those somehow always got tears in them.

At the time she swore it was her mother forcing her to wear the monstrosities, but looking back, she wondered if there was actually merit to this.

Verrt-whirrr-thump.

The sound of a mechanical suit charging forward caught Mallory’s attention, using her Scythe, she swung. Her mind and body moving on reflex.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

In the moment of attack her body was without pain, without fatigue, and without resistance, she just moved.

Slink.

Just like every other time her Scythe cleaved through yet another enemy mech unit. A unit that had to be powered by a mage.

Despite having cut down hundreds of mages, the wave of Legrand mages, and mage fueled contraptions never ceased to come.

Flicker.

For a moment she thought about calling forth a Soul-Destroying Comet.

While her body was sore and being pushed to its new Tier V limits, her magic core was relatively untouched. No doubt Cass could come up with some way to use the excess magic to replenish her core faster, but for the life of her she could barely use one or the other, and Mallory knew for a fact that utilizing both at the same time would be impossible for her.

This was why her mind pulled forth possible solutions. Now that her core had been increased in size and capacity, Mallory knew that the level of destruction she could summon with her Soul-Destroying Comet would be more than enough to completely decimate the Legrand forces.

There was of course just one drawback to using such a power.

The spell was so powerful that it couldn’t tell friend from foe.

Also, the spell was the same one that killed Cass’ parents. Well, their original lives, at least.

There were other factors to consider as well.

Namely the fact that despite having clearly a majority of their forces having some form of magical capacity, they had been relatively light their use of devastating spells.

Part of this was the way that all SVC teams had at least two members who practiced Quick Casting Dispels not three days ago as part of their mid-term exams.

As part of the after-action report, Mallory would make it a note to ask the SVC detachment members if the training was relevant? At the time she and her staff fielded hundreds of complaints about her unorthodox training methods. Yet, the results were fairly undeniable. Here they were, not even a fourth of the way through their curriculum and many were showing capabilities that far surpassed an army known for its mage components.

Of course, there was one reason why the Legrand army had such a wild surplus of mages, even if they were generally weaker, they were still mages.

For Legrand had one ace up their sleeve that they used constantly.

A glitch in the system, at least that is what many would call an invaluable genetic FLAW that could constantly produce mage after mage just by touching them.

Then again, Cass could do the same, all except make them all Tier IX or above casters if she chose.

The greedy side of Mallory wanted her to do just that, fight back this army of low level Tier II and above mages with Cass trained and modified super mages.

That conversation was only attempted once to Cass, posed as a mere hypothetical.

“What would you think of taking these mages once they are fully trained and certified by you, and helping to modify their cores to make them exceptional?”

Cass had been working on something at the time, for a moment Mallory almost thought that Cass hadn’t heard her, as she was fashioning some type of metallic item.

In fact, at that time she was so engrossed in her current task that she had her tongue out.

Realizing the almost faux-pas of distracting Cass in such a scenario, she thought about just leaving the topic entirely.

It was only once she made a step away, that Cass finally spoke.

“I have thought about it, training super mages, spinning them up with all sorts of knowledge that I have taken years to learn. Then juicing them up with cores that are so powerful that they can fully utilize what they learned here, but then I ask myself, why?”

“Why?” Mallory found herself parroting back.

“Yes, why give them magic? When part of the joy, of working with magic is the surprise and wonder that comes along with it. The way it can always show you more, if you just take a moment to look. By giving them knowledge, and then supercharging their cores, I will break magic for them. They won’t have to work for it, to make it so magic works the way they want it to. I will do them the greatest disservice of empowering them with the ability to use the greatest thing in this world, but cripple their want and desire to explore and make magic part of themselves.

“That is why I don’t just give out Tier XIII cores to everyone. That is why I generally offer one or the other. For those that get cores, I do not offer my knowledge and experience, for then they are set to walk down a limited path that I already set for them. That is also why during their tests and trials, I make them do magic, to push the limits and boundaries of what is possible, so they can learn to experience the joy of magic,” Cass finally concluded.

Then that conversation was completely derailed as a quick flash showed that whatever Cass had been working on at that time came to life in her hands and glowed with a magical brilliance.

Seeing the item, Mallory was intrigued, “what is that?”

“This, well it is an automatic broom,” Cass said letting the device fall from her hands, where it promptly hit the floor and began sweeping.

“You created a magical broom?”

“Yeah,” Cass replied.

“Might I ask why?”

“Just trying to figure out how to clean up a cave…” Cass posed.

“Okay, but what does it do with the dirt after it’s done sweeping?” Mallory asked.

“GAH, dang it!” Cass exclaimed, as she then began furiously marking out lines, while annotating even more notes in her odd pixie script.

Thinking back to that moment, Mallory wondered if she inadvertently caused the pixie to create the Mythical grade Sacrificial Altar that put the magical world on its head, and all but forced Legrand to invade.

…

“FOCUS!” Melkin exclaimed as he barreled past Mallory, jostling her just enough to force Mallory to take a step forward. Only then did she realize that she nearly got hit by the blast of a second or maybe seventh Magi-tech mechanoid mechanical suit.

Shaking her head, Mallory swung her Scythe again, though again her level of energy dropped and she felt like she was spiking on her glucose levels, something that hadn’t happened to her in a long time.

“We need reinforcements!” Vickard exclaimed.

“Should I call it in?” The dispatcher mage asked, her eyes locked onto Mallory who was taking a breather while Vickard and Melkin slashed through the soldiers that remained nearby.

Thump-rumble-thump.

At that moment, a giant object large enough to shake the ground could be felt coming. Looking out, Mallory saw a giant monstrosity of carbon and magic.

There off in the desert was the unmistakable design of a moving millipede, if a millipede could be made out of metal, powered by mages, and fire bursts of arcane energy from movable turrets.

Seeing the monstrosity, Mallory realized that her intelligence agents hadn’t been wrong in their description of the device. If anything, they seemed to have undersold the enormity of the device.

Then again, who would believe that a device with hundreds of legs, powered by a minimum of one hundred Legrand mages working together in unison to move and power a colossal death machine like this could be believed.

Even looking at it, Mallory felt awe, fear, and wonder staring at it. Looking at it, Mallory felt that while she might be able to cut down a leg or two of the beast, the thing had hundreds of legs, and seemingly multiple segments that could break way into more millipedes.

At that moment, there was only one person that she knew could save her.

“Yeah, get me the pixie,” Mallory commanded.

At that there was a nod, as the communications mage turned her head and began calling it in. With that, Mallory turned to face the enemy.

VRRRTTT-SWOOSH!

Mallory saw one of the massive turrets of the monster turn and fire right at one of the more fortified sections of defense that they had managed to assemble.

As the shot fired forward, the world seemed to slow down as a massive burst of condensed blue magical energy shot forth.

KABOOOOMMM!!!

“As quickly as possible,” the communications mage answered an unheard question.

The blast was violent and deadly.

Given its size and scale, Mallory knew that nothing could stand up to such a direct burst.

Even watching it land, Mallory could see that the giant blue sphere landed, and began billowing out. Yet, there was something odd that happened just before impact.

The sphere began to disintegrate, not entirely, not completely, but the very core of the magical burst had begun to unravel slightly. This meant that when the ball landed against the magical shielding, the most severe parts of the blast were dissolved into vapor.

After landing, Mallory could almost swear she saw cheering erupt from the people who were right at the impact site.

“Good, they finally learned to Dispel before it hit them in the face,” a sarcastic voice said, and hearing her voice, Mallory almost felt a wave of relief wash over her, so complete was her trust in Cass.

“Kind of need you to help with something,” Mallory said, turning slightly to Cass.

“The big giant worm thingy?” Cass asked, while pointing at the Legrand Magi-tech millipede.

Mallory turned to face Cass, and not really wanting to get into a definition of objects argument right now just answered succinctly, “yes.”

For a moment Cass looked like she was about to argue, but then something shifted. Her face hardened, going from its normally smiling glow to something far harsher.

Seeing the sudden shift in her friend, Mallory also felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise up, as she felt a strangely intense pull of magic coming to the area.

While Mallory was not the most sensitive of magic users, even a blind man would be able to see the sudden swell and change of magical energies that suddenly overtook the pixie.

“Everything okay?” Mallory posed.

“No,” was the one-word answer Cass gave.

Mallory was about to ask for more, but paused as she saw that Cass was taking this very personally for some reason. Which was good, for at that exact moment, the centipede began gearing up, increasing its speed as it seemed to barrel forward, trying to bulldoze its way over the walls and embankments, before going straight to the heart of their territory.

Then just as everything looked like it was about to fail, Cass moved her left hand and forever changed the fate of the battle…