“Hold!”
Ariel's spare hand that did not hold the spear was clenched in a fist above her head as she bellowed out her order. The five units that could only barely make out her outline due to their distance from each other obliged as they watched the fastest monsters rapidly close the distance in front of them. A hundred meters. Seventy-five. Fifty.
“Hold!”
Forty. Thirty.
“Hold!”
Twenty-five. Twenty.
Fifteen.
“Retreat! Retreat!”
Her fist turned into a palm that she rapidly moved back and forth parallel to the ground, signaling all five cavalry units to pull back in haste as she turned her bicorn around. The monsters that had been lured close to the cavalry gave chase, unwilling to let go of their prey they had been close enough to practically smell. Leading the chase were monsters like direwolves and harpies, and the cavalry that sped away were only barely able to keep the distance from decreasing, as they spurred the bicorns to accelerate even further.
From the V-formation that the five units were in, they were all equally distanced from the rendezvous point in the massive U-shaped clearing they needed to get to. This was a point that was roughly in between the position of the snipers of the assassin unit at the rear that picked off the monsters that managed to get too close to the cavalry units and the center.
“Argh!-”
“It seems we have our first casualty of this war.”
As Draven had commented from the back of Noah high in the sky, one of the members of the cavalry unit closest to the Alpha zone, which was the right side of the U shape from the perspective of an observer facing the monsters, had fallen to the hands of an exceptionally speedy Imp that had managed to evade the eyes of the snipers and pulled the man off the bicorn.
Before any monsters could stop to feast on the fallen soldier, the teleporters of the rescue squad immediately went to work. The cavalry's efforts to clump the monsters together and pull them inward to the first rendezvous point was a suicide effort without them.
Teleporters of the rescue unit were trained to reach the sixth circle as soon as possible to use the teleport spell, and then would train to specialize exclusively in it, eliminating all the nausea that came with using the spell that led it to be despised among mages while also learning to be able to cast it almost instantaneously.
The imp, sometimes called purple goblins with wings, tried to claim its kill that rolled off the back of the bicorns and fell to the floor, but as it widened its jaws and clamped down, it bit nothing with air. While it stopped to look around in confusion, the rest of the monster horde caught up and crushed the imp in the stampede. The Imp was rapidly reduced to unrecognisable purple flesh on the ground as it was buried under the ocean of primal hunger.
In the sky, Evan, crouched and looking over Noah’s side, whistled with an impressed expression.
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“Even I barely caught the teleporter appearing and disappearing with the wounded man and the bicorn. If only those guys existed on Earth.”
Noah softly rumbled his massive throat in agreement.
Meanwhile, the rest of the cavalry continued to pull back at full throttle. At this rate, it seemed that as long as any other anomalies did not occur, the cavalry would be able to accomplish their role.
Of course, it would not be so easy.
“They’ve sped up.”
“It seems to be the case, Princess Elara. This must be the Archlich’s doing. At this height, it’s difficult to spot the mana from whatever spell he’s cast, but the effects are obvious enough to arrive at such a conclusion.”
“Ive told you before, I'm not a princess anymore. Stop calling me that. Anyway, about this situation, this is unfortunate. The Archlich has not revealed itself, and is likely casting the spell from an underground location. He must have realized the absence of the other demon knights now and had decided to rely on a more tactical style of warfare over brute force now. Its location means that Noah can’t freeze the Archlich to stop this.”
“Not to worry, Prin-Kuhum."
Draven cut himself off with a cough, then continued after he corrected himself.
"Apologies. Not to worry, Elara. Sir Noah’s basilisk eyes that we had planned to be used to prevent interference may have failed to prevent this, but we knew that there were many ways this part of our defensive strategy could be interfered with, and is why the S-ranked Ariel, who was overqualified for this role, was made commander, was she not?”
“You’re right, Draven, but it still is quite upsetting. At the very least, we know that Noah’s basilisk eyes would still work to temporarily neutralize the dragon if it tries to use dragon breath, since there is no way dragon breath can be fired from a hidden location.”
“That is only if the dragon shows itself. Remember, the reason we have allowed only the cavalry units on the battlefield is so that the dragon is decentivised to enter it as well. We need the dragon to continue to see itself as a hidden trump card, to think that the cavalry is a mere opening act, and to wait for the whole standing army to show itself before it chooses to use its dragon breath. In the event that the dragon shows itself anyway to wipe out the cavalry, as you’ve said, Noah can take action with his clear line of sight to the dragon. Of course, for our strategy to work, it would still be preferable if the dragon does not show, and, along with Gradias, gives us as much time in the sky as possible, since we- oh? Sir Noah? Why have you rumbled your throat?”
“Uhm. Draven.”
“Yes, Evan, how can I help?”
“Let me translate what Noah just said, he probably wants you to stop discussing your plans out loud since the possibility that the Archlich has spotted us and is listening in on us is not zero.”
Noah rumbled again, even louder.
“Noah, I know what you want me to say, and I won’t say it like that.”
Rumble!
“Fine. Draven, these are not my words, but what I know Noah would have wanted to say if he could speak out loud. Kuhum. Draven, please stop fucking monologuing and spilling the bag.”
Noah did not rumble again. Draven looked awkwardly at Evan, who looked back just as awkwardly.
Seraphina, at the sound of the rare expletive from Evan, briefly looked over, but then immediately went back to looking over Noah’s side. At the same time the other twenty or so mages on top of Noah’s massive wyrm shaped form had, she had realized that the monsters had sped up, and she had been progressively getting more and more tense. In just the last few minutes since the monsters had sped up, the casualties had risen, and over half the cavalry had been taken in by the rescue squad when they fell off. Many had also been wounded by fighting off monsters that got too close and were showing signs of heavy damage.
The rescue squad was only advised to intervene if the soldiers themselves were too injured to continue their mission or were seconds away from death, like soldiers that had fallen off their bicorns. As a result of the tight timings that the rescue squad worked with, some fatalities were inevitable, and the injured cavalry members who were barely clinging to their bicorns seemed likely to be future victims of this inevitability.
And though the cavalry members knew this as well, they still pushed on. All of them currently present were vital to the strategy, and at least one person in each of the five units needed to continue to push on to pull the monsters deeper into the U-shape.
Seraphina clenched her fists.
“Ariel…”