"Please, sun god, forgive me for the blasphemy of being a burden to your servant," the Baron helplessly muttered, repeating the same prayer again and again. He felt that being carried by a holy crusader was disrespectful, both to me and the god I supposedly followed.

I did my best to ignore his annoying voice, knowing that his sudden fascination with my fake religion would be very useful during the siege. Without it, I wouldn't have brought him along, as his general understanding of combat was the exact opposite of what one needed during a siege.

Patience.

However, despite his horrible command aptitude, there were important benefits to his presence. Particularly, authority. As the rightful ruler of the town, his presence would allow me to access a lot of resources that would have otherwise been inaccessible.

I wasn't suddenly an expert on sieges, of course. My work back on Earth didn't include extended sieges in the medieval sense, but, even without all the tricks I could pull with my unique stat spread, I could control a siege much better than our Baron here.

Still, when disguised as a mysterious knight serving an even more mysterious god, I needed my figurehead, no matter how annoying.

As I charged, I ignored the temptation to assign even more stat points to Speed to close my arrival. I was receiving periodic signals from Limenta, which told me that things were under control.

I needed to keep those stat points in reserve, to make sure I could adjust my abilities as needed to address the surprises I would face during the siege.

Halfway in, we saw our first cultist presence. A raiding team, consisting of five cultists. "Let's kill those followers of evil, sir. That way, we can—" he started. I shut him up with a blow to his helmet, leaving his ears ringing, feeling like he was the kind that would react to physical punishment much better than words. "Sir?" he asked, surprised.

"Keep your priorities in mind," I shut him up without even slowing down.

"But, the more cultists we kill, the less that can join the siege," he explained, like it was a trivial conclusion.

Suggesting that keeping him under control might be more difficult than I had expected.

I changed our course a bit, even though it would delay us two more minutes. I wanted to avoid an encounter with his traitorous uncle. If he was making that much trouble by not killing a few cultists, I really didn't want to try to hold him back against a relative who had abandoned him to seemingly certain death.

Our Baron looked like a guy who wouldn't care about the presence of the two hundred traitor soldiers. I didn't want to see whether his newfound religion would be enough.

A minute's time loss was far more acceptable than the certain death of the Baron.

I continued running, avoiding the cultist groups that were still spilling out of the tunnels easily. However, the more I watched them, the more I started to believe my conclusion about the whole Town Maell being a trap.

Either I was unlucky enough to come across the bulk of the reinforcements, or they truly had an army that could take down Town Maell even with the army in place.

I was glad that I had already asked Takis and his forces to move. And, more importantly, I was glad that, since I established them, I had been dropping our excess advanced skill stones by them to keep their fighting abilities sharp.

Of course, my hope was for them to hunt down the occasional cultist kidnapping operation rather than take part in a siege … but at this point, I was used to life throwing me nasty curveballs.

We avoided the larger groups and just bypassed the smaller groups … and soon, Town Maell was in our sights, surrounded by an army. One that counted in tens of thousands.

And growing.

I ignored the sense of defeat that spread through my heart, along with the voice that was on the back of my head, asking whether I had done enough, or if I could have stopped the tragedy had I tried more.

A question that I was familiar with ever since I had received my first hint of power. In every deadly encounter that cost me the lives of my men, in every tragedy I had faced, that voice asked me to blame me for not being enough. That I should have done more.

What was worse was that the voice was right, most of the time … Just like now, but facing a huge and growing army that threatened to swallow a town whole, it was hardly the time to think about that.

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Instead, I examined the army from a distance. Aside from the numbers, the first thing I noticed was the composition of the army. Unlike the previous group we had fought against, only a small portion of them were acting madly, and most of them were wearing armor. Altogether, the facts implied a more competent group.

Yet, that part didn't scare me. Their numbers were impressive, but not impressive enough to take down a town with as many magic defenses as Town Maell. Certainly not when they had a dungeon in town, which meant enough mana stones to fuel the defenses for a long time.

What scared me was the number of robed figures I could see, marking themselves as priests. Regardless of their actual class, their ability to use destruction mana to summon made them a big problem. I suspected they were having trouble controlling those summoned beasts, as instead, they were using their mana on some captured beasts to corrupt them into creatures similar to what we had fought earlier.

Th cultist forced those beasts to attack walls, their Charisma usage was noticeable even from such a distance.

A troubling sight, evidenced by the fact that Baron Maell was looking at the view in shock rather than suggesting we charge forward bravely and cut a line through the army. "Sir crusader," he whispered after almost a minute while I examined the forces, sounding defeated for the first time. "Please take revenge for me."

Just as he took a step forward, I grabbed his neck and lifted him. "Please, sir. I can't just stand and watch while my people get slaughtered," he said.

Admirable intentions, horrible execution.

He looked ready to fight against me as I lifted him once more, stopping only when he noticed my destination.

Toward the siege, not away from it.

"S-sir, are we going to fight," he stammered, though I could hear the excitement in his tone. I couldn't help but sigh.

He really had a one-track mind when fighting was concerned.

"Not exactly," I said as I continued running, soon reaching the first line of cultists. Most of them lacked speed to catch up with me, and the few that had the Speed stat enough to get near me lacked the other stats to fight against me, a flash of my blade enough to take them down.

It didn't matter even if they did, not when their skills forced them to take a proper stance to attack, as the time they took to shift would cost them dearly.

No wonder Zolast had thought Speed and Strength was a bad combination.

However, as we moved — or I moved, carrying the Baron like luggage — we soon reached the main cultist army, their lines finally thick enough to confront me without needing Speed. Even with my Stats, I couldn't just charge through them.

All they would need was to slow me down while one of their elites with a master skill caught up, or their casters summoned their monsters around me, and I would be locked in place. I was strong, but not strong enough to fight against an army alone.

Not yet, anyway.

Luckily, that was not necessary. I still had a trick I was proud of to solve one of my biggest deficiencies.

I jumped, using Strength to reach a height that would make a pole-vaulter jealous — perks of awakened Strength — leaving the army under me surprised, but they were still excited about catching up with me.

Unfortunately for them, I had a trick in mind. I reached into my mana…

[-2 Mana]

And a platform appeared right under my feet, solid for a fleeting moment. Using it, I jumped even higher, earning several shocked cries from the army underneath.

It was a trick I had developed to bypass my biggest problem.

Flying.

Of course, it was possible with magic, as evidenced by the commonality of the flying carts and castles. And, according to Zolast, any semi-competent mage could fly unaided.

Unfortunately, despite several areas in which I was making wild improvements, I was nowhere near capable enough to earn the exalted title of semi-competent as far as magic was concerned.

Luckily, I had managed to find a suitable workaround.

Another platform, and I jumped again, and the shouts of the cultists intensified, though this time, accompanied by one I didn't expect.

A panicked cry from the baron, whose face was blanched worse than the time he was considering a suicidal charge against the cultist army alone. Realizing my gaze was on him, he looked away, ashamed, letting another soft gasp as I created another platform to jump once more. "I … I'm not good with heights," he admitted.

"I can always drop you off if you want," I said even as I created another platform to jump, this time moving diagonally to avoid most of the arrows, and a flash of my sword enough to parry the rest thanks to my Agility.

I was just teasing him to distract him from the jump — mostly because I didn't want him to start struggling like a drowning victim — but he actually looked like he was considering the offer.

I sighed as I jumped once again, gaining even more height, the arrows and spells easily dodged as I bounced between platforms. The whole town watched the show, some silent, some crying in shock. Though, even as they watched, I doubted that it would work for them.

Without a combination of Speed and awakened Strength, it would be just a guy slowly climbing through mana stairs. With them, however, it allowed me to pass over the army and reached the outer walls of the town.

The guards reached their weapons in preparation, their gaze on me … and not on the man who had collapsed and had a small panic attack. Maybe they would have realized his identity if his armor was intact, but after the two long skirmishes, the decorations were replaced by scratches.

"Stand up and don't shame the sun god," I said to him, accompanied by a concentrated blast of Charisma. I didn't blame him for it. Phobias were complicated things. One of the bravest men I ever knew, for example, was scared of closed spaces, a gift from his 'loving' father.

I had no doubt that the baron had his own reasons to be scared of heights to this degree — especially since a fall wouldn't even hurt him with his level — but I didn't have the time to coddle him.

Charisma also worked like a blast of antidepressant, and the baron stood up, and removed his helmet.

"My lord," the guards gasped at once, kneeling as they realized the man with the ruined armor was their liege lord.

"Good work defending the town, soldiers," the baron said, while I was already looking around, thinking about the best way to take control of the siege without causing a rebellion.

Before I could make a decision, the baron knelt in front of me. "The town is yours to command, lord crusader," he said.

Well, that would work.