I wiped the sweat and blood from my brow, grime covering me.

Oh, how I miss you, my beloved seas.

The helmet I wore produced prodigious amounts of sweat from me, but it was better than my skull being split open.

Which has almost happened twice already.

Two days. The fighting had been a brutal affair. The first probing assault had gone as well as it could. Our superior quality forces, supported by more mages than the Northern forces contained, had managed to repel the assault with minimal losses or subjectively minimal losses.

Damn, if this doesn’t feel worse than even the worst storms.

At least in the heart of the raging seas, you were man against nature, a beautiful struggle encompassing what life meant.

This… This wasn’t right. Men and women fighting their own.

But it must be done.

I was just a soldier, doing as I was told. My parents had been locked up and never seen again, all because the crown had an agenda against magic. That was what had led me to Nochesuki.

And now here I was, leading the defense against the best-defended city in perhaps the entire world.

Usually, an assault goes the other way around.

It went without saying that the forces of Theronhold had no fear of holding their city. So, all they needed to do was crush the forces gathered outside her walls, there for whatever misgiven beliefs they had about their chances of capturing the storied city.

Or something like that. I mused, strangely thoughtful for the likes of myself to be thinking about.

Too much time around people smarter than me.

I’d risen the ranks. I was a natural sailor with potent magic. My explosive magic could empower cannons, making it helpful to keep on a ship where I could augment a cannon into a deliverer of firepower that could singlehandedly lay waste to entire battleships.

Life is strange.

“Commander!” A young scout ran up to me, saluting.

“Yes?” I questioned, keeping my face neutral as I’d emulated Dirk or Danai.

“They prepare for another assault.”

Fuck.

Outwardly, I simply nodded. “Alright. Send word to have the message spread. We rise to meet them once again.”

Two days. While the first probing assault had gone well, the same couldn’t be said for any of the attacks after. They were on edge. At the beginning of the first assault, we’d all felt the thundercrack of energy, of a weight that pressed down on us all, never fading since that moment, instead growing heavier and heavier.

Zero.

I knew it was the former adventurer’s doing, and I smiled briefly. Rook was a good man, even if he didn’t always seem to see it that way. He had an air of melancholy and self-flagellation to him. Whenever a smile would begin to touch his face, he would crush it before it could ever develop past a stillborn smirk. I knew he’d gone through things, and I had tried to offer him what friendship I could. It was the creed of a sailor, after all; any man or woman who rode out the sea’s worst storms together were bonded as companions.

Minutes passed as the soldiers gathered once again, preparing to repel our attackers. I’d done it often enough times, fighting off would-be pirates as they attempted to board my ship, but this was a little different.

By a factor of a thousand or so.

The last wave repelled was a clash of nearly double our numbers, and this next assault looked even worse.

We managed to hold them back as well as we did because we had a significantly greater number of mages making up our ranks. These mages had been permitted to utilize their magic as they deemed appropriate, so long as it did not interfere with their fellow soldiers.

Come on, Rorak.

I could see Garus down the left flank. The man wasn’t a talker, but the troops generally respected that. His rarely spoken words gave that much more power to what he did utter. Down the right, I saw Martha rousing troops with some speech of her own, though I knew little of the woman, our interactions brief. At the very least, she was a capable fighter and leader.

And then there is me.

I was just supposed to be a sailor, yet here I was, leading a large contingent of troops in a battle against an unconquerable city fortress.

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Just another day at the office.

I smirked before wiping it away. Mounting up on a stallion brought to me, I rode out in front of my force.

“We find ourselves gathered here yet again. Twice now, we’ve repelled, and soon, it shall be thrice. I no longer need to encourage you with words of valor, for you all know what we fight for. Instead, we shall do our duty as always and bring victory to our brothers and sisters who fight in the South and depend on our success here so that they may freely fight without fear of assault from the North!”

A cheer rang out, not as loud as the first time I’d ridden out and spoke to our soldiers, but then we’d done this song and dance twice now; there wasn’t much else to be said.

Turning around on my warhorse, I pointed my gladius forward. I wasn’t much of a sword fighter; I preferred a good ole mace, but it was seen as a leader’s weapon, so I raised it all the same.

Seconds passed as I heard similar cheers die down across our line, and only moments later, we began our forward advance, charging out to meet a much greater force.

How I’d prefer to tackle an overwhelming storm over this.

Our charge continued accelerating, and I reached for the power within my core. I held the power, imagining it like a spinning globe ready to be cast out. I held the words tight to my lips, waiting until we were only moments from collision.

“Scozar!” I shouted as I slashed out with the sword, a slash of rippling power ripping out like a vertical wave. The magic struck the opposing force, blasting them backward and into their fellow troops, as I felt a vicious smile tug at my lips.

“Get some!” I yelled out as I crashed into the destabilized force, my Burst magic tearing through men and women alike. Burst magic was a rarer form of Wild magic, requiring affinities for Scorz and Kinzar. Scorz, fire, wasn’t all that uncommon; based on what I’d heard in conversations from those more knowledgeable than I, it was probably the most common affinity. Kinzar, Force magic, on the other hand, was the rarest of the primal affinities, which was what made Burst magic rare. When the two primal affinities were blended, you ended up with Burst magic, powerful but taxing; I was like a walking, talking cannon.

“Scozar!” I shouted again as I whipped my blade outward, directing another exploding wave of force into enemy lines.

By now, the entirety of our forces had met with our enemy counterparts, and the bloody chaos was in full swing. The Northern troops were defensive bulwarks, in contrast with the dueling style of the North, in part due to the history of Theronhold itself. Marching forward in Phalanx formation, their superior numbers would have undoubtedly ground us down.

But what was the point of magic if not to disrupt the status quo?

All around, magic began exploding outward, with gouts of acid or fire, slashing rain, and piercing eyes ripping through the armor of our foes. Most of our troops weren’t skilled mages, but they didn’t need to be; they just needed to soften them up so we could crash into them like a wrecking ball, preventing their superior numbers from grinding us down with simple efficiency.

I sent another exploding strike outward, already beginning to feel the drain of mana from my core. I had another ten or so left in the tank before I’d be running on fumes, so I’d have to make them count.

As I struck out, an enemy soldier lunged out from my left, separated from his defensive lines. I was half a second too slow as I felt the pierce of a spear into my side, ice and fire ripping through me. Roaring in pain and adrenaline, I whipped around, my sword striking his head from his shoulders.

Screw it.

Sheathing my blade, I pulled free my trusty mace, crushing helmets and shields alike, gore and viscera exploding with each strike, a snarl on my face. Another spear was launched toward me, but this I was ready as I deflected it with a swing from my shield before crushing the unfortunate woman’s skull with a well-placed mace to the face, her head crumpling into an unrecognizable mess of bone, blood, and flesh.

“Sir!” A soldier yelled out as several troops rushed to either side of me. I’d charged further into the enemy than I’d realized at first glance.

Damned Red Haze.

With troops shoring up my defenses on either side, we set about the grim, repetitive business of death. The stories of war failed to address the reality that war was often relatively straightforward. Stab, slash, hack, and repeat until you either die or the enemy is pushed back. In our case, we occasionally threw out a spell.

“Sir!’ I heard one of my soldiers suddenly shout for my attention. Sparing a single glance, I saw what the woman was pointing at. Somehow, Garus had been separated; he and only a small band of our troops encircled.

Shit.

I had no time to think, strategize, or consider the best course of action. All I had were my instincts.

“Ride!” I shouted, pointing my mace toward Garus as I felt the pressure bearing down on those with me. It was a bloody stupid idea, charging out from our line, piercing into the enemy forces to try to retrieve Garus and those poor bastards with him, but I couldn’t just let him be hacked down.

You didn’t leave a fellow sailor.

Swinging my mace like a madman, I crushed through bodies like a scythe through wheat, men, and women to my left and right, assisting as our sudden forward rush took our enemies by surprise. For several tense minutes, we pushed forward like demons from the deepest underworld layers, my mace a death blur.

I wonder if this is what Zero always feels like.

I didn’t give the thought any more consideration; my only focus was retrieving Garus. Closing in, I did something arguably stupid, whipping my mace forward as I infused mana through it.

“Scozar!”

A ripple of displaced air pulsed from the mace as the kinetic explosion threw soldiers away, many never standing back up. Rushing forward, I yanked free my gladius as one of the soldiers with me scooped up the mace and heaved it back toward me. With a small opening created from the explosion, we smashed through the last few enemy troops as we reached where Garus had been.

It was a testament to Garus and the troops with him that any of them were still holding out. Circled with their backs toward one another, they fended off enemy assault, though I could see plenty of corpses wearing our standards. Garus looked like he had been bathed in blood, the silent man fighting with clockwork efficiency.

“Garus!” I yelled out, catching his attention. For a brief moment, I saw a rare smile cross his face. With a spear raised in a short salute, we rendezvoused.

“We’re here to get you out,” I said briefly.

“’ Preciate it,” Garus grunted before I saw his eyebrow raise. “Whose getting you out though?”

Turning around, I saw what the man was referring to. The hole we’d punched through enemy lines had been closed, and now we were just as encircled as Garus had been minutes prior.

Shit.

Had it been reckless charging out to save Garus? Yes. Did I regret my decision?

Hell no.

With a vicious grin, I nodded at Garus. “Us, of course.”

“’ Course,” Garus grunted, a twinkle in his eyes as he hefted his spear and readied his shield.

“You owe me a drink after this is all over,” I muttered to the man before raising my mace back toward where we’d come.

“Now, let’s get the fuck out of here!”