Nidoume no Jinsei wo Isekai de - Chapter 180

The infantrymen, who got off the chariots, started to form ranks in a hurry.The horses, which were mounted by the cavalrymen up until this point, were gathered around the chariots which were parked in one place, and a part of the riders changed into light equipment after dismounting and joined the infantrymen’s ranks.

“I guess they won’t use their horses.” (Shion)

Shion, who had stopped her horse somewhere slightly apart from the dragonoids, mutters while watching the state of affairs.Except for a small part of the cavalrymen, who had marched together with the chariots so far, the majority dismounted their horses and were treated as infantry.

“It’s probably because cavalry is useless when assaulting a city wall.” (Renya)

What’s demanded of cavalry is charging force and mobility. In both siege battle and urban combat infantry plays the most important part.Linus seems to be well aware of that, too. He has divided the cavalry for the wall assault and in case the situation turns into an open field battle. He doesn’t plan to make use of the cavalry in a situation where the enemy is completely secluding themselves inside the city as it’s happening now.

“He’s an unexpectedly mediocre general?” (Croire)

Renya smiled wryly at Croire’s impression.

“That’s no praise, you know?” (Renya)

“No, seeing as it wouldn’t be odd for him to be a foolish general going by his appearance, treating him as an average person is a compliment.” (Croire)

Croire’s point is that she might give him a zero as her evaluation rather than a negative one, but Renya doesn’t think that Linus would be delighted if he heard this.

“What worries me more than that is the question of how they are going to surpass that wall with nothing but infantry?” (Rona)

Rona questions while tilting her head to the side in confusion.

“What about cutting through it?” (Renya)

“Only you are capable of doing something like that.” (Rona)

Rona scornfully glares at Renya who makes such a careless remark.

“Even the heroes should be capable of that much, no?” (Renya)

“I can’t do it. After all this is my specialized weapon.” (Grün)

Grün draws his two katana, and drops them back into their scabbards, which are hanging at the left and right of his waist, after turning the hilts around on his palms.

“I can’t do it either. You can’t cut a wall with a katana, can you?”

Turning in the direction of the owner’s voice, Renya reveals a questioning look.At the end of Renya’s line of sight was Albert who was wondering whether he said something weird while grasping the reins atop his horse.

“Why are you over there?” (Renya)

“Eh? For better or worse I’m a hero.” (Albert)

“The dragonoid’s hero, right? You were skillfully recruited, weren’t you?”

Although Albert is a hero, he belongs to the dragonoids. Because of that Renya thought he would be taken along by Linus and forced to join the battle of the army that was forming ranks in front of their eyes. As a result Renya ended up being surprised by Albert remaining behind.

“The heroes are a set of four, all of us, thus I gave him a warning not to recruit Albert without listening to our opinion.” (Lepard)

Lepard explains to the curious Renya.Grün, who was smiling brightly next to Lepard, whispered something outrageous.

“The moment I asked him,We will turn into your enemies if you take him without our approval, you know?, he became so pale that it was actually funny.” (Grün)

“You lot, what are you intimidating an ordinary person for?” (Renya)

“What are you saying, Margrave-dono? The commander of an army is no ordinary person.”

Grün protests with an expression which makes it obvious that he considers Renya’s words to be unthinkable.If seen through the eyes of a hero, there might be no real difference between an ordinary person, an ordinary soldier, or a general, Renya believes, but that apparently doesn’t apply to Grün.

“Titles are important. Even if they are useless.” (Grün)

“Both of you, sister and brother, sure have nice personalities.” (Renya)

“That person is our parent after all.” (Grün)

Grün showed a smile that would make anyone of the opposite gender immediately fall for him, but unfortunately the target of his smile is the sour looking Renya.Renya, who was reminded of the elven emperor’s face thanks to the lineThat person is our parent, shook his head as if trying to shake off the mental image.

“Don’t make me rememberthat…it urges the desire in me to reconsider my association with you guys.” (Renya)

“That’s no good.” (Grün)

“I guess it’s necessary to get rid ofthatas soon as possible…” (Croire)

Croire plainly voiced out a cruel line that would have likely gotten her arrested instantly on the elven continent if she had muttered it publicly, and to top it off, she said such a line with a serious face.Renya had the feeling that she had been a little bit more like an elvish girl when he met her, but once he realized that she had been tainted by various things without him even noticing, he actually began to feel the cruelty of the stream of time.

“You’re better not be thinking that you don’t have any responsibility in this.” (Shion)

Seemingly having noticed what Renya was thinking about intuitively, Shion retorts, but Renya takes no notice of her statement by pretending to be absorbed in his own thoughts.Croire looked at Renya, with a completely different expression compared to her serious face, and laughed.

“Let’s get back to the main topic.” (Rona)

With a light cough, Rona begins to speak after drawing everyone’s attention once again.

“The infantrymen are all present, but they don’t have any siege weapons. There’s no sign of them having brought along battering rams or ladders either. Just what the heck are they planning to do?” (Rona)

“If it was me, I would jump over the wall…” (Grün)

While massaging her eyebrows with her fingers due to Grün’s reply,

“I think they want to tear the wall down with sorcery.” (Albert)

Seemingly believing that there’s no point for the conversation to continuously get derailed, Albert stated his conclusion.

“If you exclude the demons, we are the strongest in regards to power and mana in this world. If we rely on numbers, it’s possible to destroy the wall with the current amount of soldiers, even if it is the capital’s wall.” (Albert)

“Is that something to be praised about withAs expected of dragonoids?” (Renya)

Once asked by Renya, Albert immediately denied that.

“It’s a wall that can be taken down all by you yourself, right Margrave-dono?” (Albert)

“Well, yeah…” (Renya)

Renya searches the knowledge inside his head while replying.The sorcery knowledge he received from Emedra covers a fairly wide range. Renya himself hadn’t been able to fully grasp all of it yet, but even so he understood that lots of water sorcery, earth sorcery which he hadn’t touched at all so far, and fire sorcery, where he had only been able to use elementary spells until now, had been crammed into his head.If you add Renya’s huge mana supply to those spells, it’s obvious that he can erase something like a city wall.Even if I didn’t use those spells, I could probably handle the wall with a shot of , Renya judges.You can say that’s the very reason he doesn’t harbor any doubts as opposed to Rona.Even if it doesn’t work out with 10,000 troops, something like a wall will likely collapse if it’s hit by some kind of sorcery cast by around 1,000 people, he believed.But, Renya is immediately shown that his way of thinking is wrong.

“It has started.” (Rona)

Once he turns his eyes towards the battlefield due to Rona’s comment, he can see how the dragonoid army, which has formed up in neat ranks, started to cast multiple kinds of spells while advancing towards the wall.Since there was quite a bit of distance between the army and the place where Renya and the others were waiting, Renya didn’t grasp what kind of spells they were chanting, but once the casting time had passed, countless spells were released towards the city’s wall from within the army that continued to advance.Although they ranged in size, all of them were fire-based spells.Renya, who thought it might have been ridiculous if they mixed in spells of opposing attributes and thus offset each other, closely watched the uniform, crimson attacks, and clicked his tongue slightly.

“Margrave-dono…I don’t know what you expected, but please stay peaceful…” (Albert)

“I won’t do anything.” (Renya)

“Then it’s fine.” (Albert)

While watching Albert leave, Renya thought,If I did something like secretly adding water-based sorcery into that magic attack, even Albert would get angry.Something like casting sorcery without chanting, with a parallel activation and moreover from a distant place was a piece of cake for Renya now that he had been given the dragons’ sorcery knowledge.If he felt like it, he could offset all the sorcery attacks of the dragonoid’s army with sorcery of the opposing attribute, but no matter how irritating the commander might be, he’s restraining himself as sabotaging one’s allies is nothing praiseworthy, even if he were to succeed without his involvement being exposed.Albert somewhat guessed Renya’s thoughts and called out to him.

“Rather than that, it’s a fairly flashy attack, and yet…it looks like it’s not working?” (Renya)

The countless spells fired by the army crash into the city’s wall, spreading shock waves and explosions, and bloom into bright red flowers.It was so fierce that it caused the ground at Renya’s group’s feet, who’s standing in the back of the army, to shake, but there was no sign of the wall itself being destroyed by those attacks.Certainly, it seems like the attacks are hitting, and the impacts and heat is transmitted to the wall as well, but as far as Renya can see from his position, there’s no indication of the wall collapsing, breaking, or melting at all.

“Renya, you don’t really think that the walls protecting important cities such as the capital city – even if it’s human or beastmen cities – are simple stone walls, do you?” (Emil)

Emil says while bringing her horse close to Shion’s which Renya is also riding.

“Since the country will perish if the capital falls, it’s only natural to apply various countermeasures to the wall protecting it, no?” (Emil)

“That means it has been given some kind of resistance towards sorcery attacks?” (Renya)

“Obviously. Not to mention that this is the dragonoid country, but there’s no way that they, who brag about their superiority, haven’t applied defense and reinforcement spells to the wall of their capital, is there?” (Emil)

“That’s something that commander called Linus knows, right?” (Renya)

“Probably. Isn’t he thinking that he can somehow overcome this wall with a brute force approach?” (Emil)

The soldiers of the dragonoid army attack the wall by firing one spell after the other, keeping a rotation system going.To Renya it looks like they are casting quite leisurely, but even without looking at their faces, it was obvious that they were taking this very seriously.

“To begin with, since a wall protects a city from something like an army, it’s expected that it’ll be exposed to a great number of attacks, or am I wrong?” (Renya)

“On top of that, I think the demons would normally reinforce the wall a lot more if they occupied the city. I mean, the ones possessing sorcery abilities greater than that of the dragonoids are the demons, after all.” (Emil)

“If I haven’t heard this incorrectly, it sounds as though the wall won’t be destroyed at this rate, right?” (Shion)

Shion forces herself into Emil’s and Renya’s conversation.Renya and Emil look at each other, and say the same line after remaining silent for a moment.

“”Shion, you were able to understand the conversation just now?””

“Yeah, since I understand from your expressions, I won’t comment…” (Shion)

“That means…” (Croire)

Croire abruptly raises her voice, obviously having hit upon something.Even while believing that it’s definitely not something worthwhile, Shion turns her attention to Croire for the time being.

“…That commander hasn’t realized something that even Shion has noticed…” (Croire)

“I wonder, could you stop using me as a standard here? …For starters, the reason why I noticed it is due to Emil’s and Renya’s conversation. Doesn’t he have any confidants that can give him such advice?” (Shion)

Upon hearing Shion’s remark, all present thought the same thing at almost the same time.

“If it’s someone with a bit of a brain, they would likely hate to be assigned as an aide to such a commander.”

Once Kaede says so as if representing everyone’s thoughts, all of them except for Albert nod.Only Albert himself dons an extremely troubled expression, and stoically resists his urge to shake his head by tensing his shoulders.

“So, it looks pointless at a glance, and is actually futile?” (Emil)

Emil asked Renya.

“Should we just let them go on then? Or should we tell them to think of other methods?”

“Those guys probably have no intention of believing whatever I say. Won’t they give up once they run out of mana?” (Renya)

Although the flames scatter and vanish after hitting the wall successively, the heat is still transmitted to the vicinity.That heat gradually raises the temperature on the battlefield. Even from a distance it was visible that fatigue was starting to appear on the faces of the dragonoid soldiers.

“I think it will take quite a bit of time, though. As there are also casters who take a break after firing spells in a rapid succession in a three-staged casting rotation, it’s unclear when they’ll run out of mana.” (Emil)

“They are being particularly attentive to a weird place,” Emil laughs.The dragonoid’s army split its infantry into three groups, with each of them being assigned to the three stages of attacking, resting and preparing.Although the instant fire power drops due to this, it allows for the individual casters to recover their strength by inserting phases of rest and preparation. As a result they are able to continue hitting the wall with a fixed fire power over a long period of time.

“In short, they planned to destroy the wall by wearing down its defense spells through a drawn-out battle in the first place, huh?” (Renya)

“That’s what I’m thinking.” (Emil)

“That’s way too careless, isn’t it? What are they going to do if they are attacked from within the city?” (Renya)

“They probably intend to cope with that by focusing the fire power in that direction, or by assigning the surplus forces, which are preparing or resting, to that side. At any rate, being able to come up with such a strategy and execute it is all thanks to the high specs of the dragonoids, I think.” (Emil)

If it’s humans or beastmen, they can’t prepare such a large number of sorcerers.In case of the elves, they might be able to prepare such numbers, but they wouldn’t be able to cope with incoming attacks.It’s no exaggeration to say that the dragonoid’s defensive capabilities are similar to gods when compared to elves. The elves have to assign guards to the casters no matter what, otherwise it could turn out terribly in case of an emergency.The situation unfolding before Renya where the army can both function as a sorcery fire power and be ready to counter an attack by using their individual defensive prowess is a way of fighting only possible for the dragonoids due to their high capabilities, regardless of whether they are a sorcerer or a warrior.

“In that case it looks like they will destroy the wall sooner or later. But it feels like the heat is being transmitted all the way over here where we are watching.”

The hot air should originally get scattered by the wind without having such a lasting effect on the surrounding temperature, but as the fire spells, which continuously strike the wall, endlessly create new hot air, that air is spread into the vicinity, and increases the atmospheric temperature, which drastically overshadows the drop in temperature produced by the wind.Such changes in the temperature not only started to affect the battlefield, but also the distant place where Renya and the others are.

“I guess we should move further away?” (Renya)

“You’re right…it’s extremely unlikely that the wall will be broken anytime soon.” (Shion)

Renya didn’t expect that Shion’s words would become some kind of trigger.By now it’s a frequently occurring phenomenon that things don’t turn out as they are expected to and Shion’s statement about the wall being fine for a while longer was no exception.When Renya and the others tried to move their horses further away to avoid the hot air, the city wall, which the dragonoid army frantically continued to attack in an attempt to destroy it, was blown away from the inside.