Narissa positioned herself in front of the war table. For the next few hours she would be the grand general of this small army of guards, adventurers and volunteers. In total, she would have control of around 2500 troops, more than double of the ones the bandits had. Not that most of those bandits would be a threat. They were the lowest of the low, people down on their luck, without anything, doing what they could to survive. She was pretty sure she could take a few dozen of them herself if she had to fight them one-on-one in sequence.
As for why she was heading such a large army? The actual heads of the city guard/army were better suited to field commanding, at least in the situation they found themselves now.
“How are the battle lines?” Narissa asked an officer in charge of relaying information to her about the battlefield.
“All our troops are in place, there are no holes leading to the city. As for the enemies, it looks like your classmates will be our vanguard. The enemy leader is taking the lead.” He answered.
“Alright. We are going with plan C then, relay it to the troops. Also, inform my dear classmates that once their target is in range, they have 5 minutes to deal with said target and deal as much damage to the enemy as possible or I will ask Mia to kidnap them so they can ‘train’ together. Also have the retrieving corps ready so that in case my classmates use everything they have, someone can get them back.”
“Who is this Mia?” The officer asked, a little confused.
“Our classmate who was in charge of the dungeon.”
“The little girl who went there alone?”
“Yes. Don’t let her adorable face fool you. She is stronger than everyone here combined and can be just as scary.”
“...Alright. I will be back in a few minutes.” The officer as he began to leave to do his job.
A few minutes later Mathias and his band of afraid friends were getting ready to do what they needed to do. Narissa's message was loud and clear. The leader of the bandits was going to die, and die fast. Anyone near him would not fare much better either.
“Alright, so here is the plan. I will block his horse. Kaki, you kill the horse. Luminus, you focus on the torso of our target. Moon, you focus on his head as it seems you can make sure you won’t miss with your magic. If he doesn’t die immediately, he will surely fall off his horse so we jump him. After that we discharge everything onto anyone around us. Any questions?” Mathias said.
“Shouldn’t we decide some directions so we don’t run into each other after we kill him?” Luminus asked.
“Good point. Since I will block the horse, I would like to go straight from my position into the direction of the bandits.” Mathias said.
“I will go to the right. I will attack from that position so it would be easier for me.” Kaki said.
“Then I go left?” Moon asked.
“No problem. I will take the corpse back to our camp just so no one can say we failed..” Luminus said. Everyone nodded in agreement that his idea was a very good idea.
Following that, everyone began to do their final checks on their equipment, go to the bathroom, etc… and then, it was finally time. The enemies were in sight, the battle was going to begin shortly.
First, both sides launched ranged attacks at each other. The bandits quickly realized, after just one volley of attacks, that they could lose this battle just from ranged attacks of the city’s impromptu army. They barely had any real mages and arrows didn’t mean much when most of the targets that were being hit by them were covered in armor or defended by a shield.
With that in mind, the bandits charged at their enemies with the fury of a thousand suns, shouting obscenities to try to scare the people in the front lines. Narissa looked at the battlefield and couldn’t help but to think this was a somewhat good idea since the mages couldn’t cast the powerful spell they used on their first volley. Not because they would damage their allies, at least not directly. It was because the terrain wouldn’t be able to withstand the barrage of spells and that would hurt their allies. One small problem, for the bandits was is that their troops were hopelessly outmatched in every way. For the most part. It was impossible for a group this big to not have a decent fighter.
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As for Mathias, Moon, Kaki and Luminus, they went ahead with their plan. The moment the bandit’s leader came into view, they dashed towards him like starved wolves upon an unsuspecting sheep.
Those four, even after these few days, couldn’t sense bloodlust, but at this moment, even if they didn’t really mean to, they could emanate it themselves.
The bandit’s leader was, above all, a coward and an opportunist. He changed his name more times he could count, to the point he forgot his original one. In the last few years he was always The Boss, Chief, Leader, etc… So, not many people used a name with him, which was good, as the man did everything in his power to not be known by some random title like all his other bosses did. Those things just put a bigger target on one’s back. But, even with all of that being taken into account, once he felt the bloodlust of the four young men running towards him, blood and fury in their eyes, he wished he had a cool name and an actual title so they would at least be a little apprehensive.
His horse couldn’t be stopped at this point, not that he would. He had a better chance against those boys than he had against the one who put him to this. And then, they met.
Mathias fortified himself to his limit with magic and using only his body he stopped the bandit’s leader horse and easily wrestled it down so it would fall to its side.
Kaki was ready and with his spear he quickly impaled the horse in the head, killing it instantly.
Luminus made his sword float and sent it straight into his target’s chest.
Moon weaved a dark spell that locked on the target’s head and was ready to explode.
The bandit’s leader fell into the ground along his horse and almost immediately was hit by two attacks. All he and everyone around him heard was a glass shattering sound as 3 of his defensive talisman activated and were ‘consumed’ if you went with video game terms. Not that anyone besides Mia would understand it.
The two attacks of the students were completely blocked and once they fully hit the floor, he was teleported a few meters behind his horse, already on his feet.
He was afraid and beginning to panic. What those kids did, was something that not even half of his troops could. Go straight for the kill. Their attacks weren’t really that powerful, all things considered. But they sent straight into his most vital areas, the ones that he couldn’t really protect even if he wanted to, so his talismans activated.
“Fuck this. I need to run.” He said as he activated another talisman, this one was supposed to send him straight to his secret base no one knew about. But instead, it only teleported him about ten meters in the direction he was supposed to go. “What!?” he said confused and then he saw it. A girl, blonde, very good looking, weaving a strange spell that affected only his hand. She did something and he knew it. The boys quickly looked behind them and saw her too. She said something to them and suddenly, all that bloodlust from before was ten times worse. Even his more experienced troops flinched.
The corpse of his horse began to float and the boy who blocked it just threw it at him. He couldn’t dodge it, he was too afraid for that. As he was mashed into the ground by the horse bullet, he couldn’t help but laugh on how he was going to die. Sadly for him, that was not the end.
Suddenly everything went dark, not as in ‘he is dying’ but dark as in ‘there is no light here’. Then a big explosion happened and he felt like he was crushed by a mountain. Once he could see again, he saw 3 swords and a spear impale his chest and face, before finally dying.
The battlefield stopped for a moment, at least for everyone who didn’t study with Mia.
“Luminus! Leave the body, we have people ready to take it. Go to the main wall, the archers there could use your protection. Mathias, That direction. Big guy, axe, fuck him up! Kaki! Horses down south, deal with them. Moon! Mages north of here are planning to flee. Take them out! GO NOW!” Narissa shouted amidst the silence of the battlefield before running back to her position. The only reason she was here in the first place was that there wasn’t anyone who could deal with talisman available. Among the few combat skills she had, magic disruption was one of them. The moment she got word that the leader was loaded with teleport talismans she knew she had to do something or this would all fail.
As for the boys, they went straight to their targets, demolishing anything in their path. The battle didn’t last even an hour after that. The bandits were pretty much wiped out with the exception of a few mages that could be useful prisoners.
The small show the special class gave, in and out of the battlefield, earned them quite the reputation in the city. So much so that the people in charge didn’t see fit to make them part of the battle clean up, even if they volunteered for it.
Everyone got together as night was approaching. Even they could feel that the dungeon was closing, so everyone, Onyx included, were going to wait for Mia outside. It wasn’t like there was anything else for them to do either.