Chapter 516: Combat results and reinforcements

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

Starwood City had once been considered a mountain city. People here used to rely on the mountain for their livelihood in the past. Yep, in the past…

“With a huge boom, just a single boom, the entire mountain range was leveled.”

“Yeah, and the whole sky lit up as well. Not the usual light outside like normal, it was more like having countless oil lamps on top of the clouds. The entire sky was so bright.”

“Oil lamps is such an under-exaggeration. I felt like there were countless suns, and that golden flower was so scary.”

Although everyone was facing war, and it was deep into the night, adventurers would never be bored of gossip, especially with such an astonishing explosion happening right next to them. While it made everyone anxious, they also had high hopes.

“I heard that our side created that.”

“Of course, idiot. Our enemy is the undead. How could they possibly create Holy Light?”

“Hmph, I heard from our temporary command center that the undead should have arrived this afternoon. But with this explosion, not only did the undead suffer serious losses, all the mountain paths were destroyed, and the undead won’t be able to arrive today. We’ve gained at least an entire extra day of time to prepare.”

Most of the time, people would only hear good news before the battle. Any good general would never release any information which would affect the morale of his soldiers. And, any major unexpected victory would naturally be exaggerated as material to motivate everyone.

After hearing the news of the explosion, Salima unhesitatingly sent spies to loudly spread stories in the taverns and streets about the victory. But when she considered the scary number of zeros in the reward on Roland’s wanted poster, she could only claim that it was due to the assistance of a master of Holy Light randomly passing by.

Starwood City had now been reinforced several times over, barely counting as a mid-level city in defenses. Its walls had now been forcibly brought up to twelve meters tall, with a thick layer of steel covering. Although these walls still wouldn’t be able to stand up to behemoths like bone giants or bone dragons, the walls would easily be able to deal with low-level skeleton seas as long as there were enough defenders.

And right now, that so-called “master of Holy Light” that everyone viewed as their savior was also in a tavern. But, I wasn’t happy at all to hear everyone praising me. I was actually feeling annoyed.

“I lost so much this time.”

I was sitting in a small private room in a tavern and sullenly drinking some alcohol while hearing outsiders brag about my achievements. Yet, I was only annoyed.

That Seeds of Holy Light forbidden spell was a brand-new theoretical invention. Nobody knew just how strong its effects would be as it hadn’t been tested yet. But, its first ever appearance earlier this afternoon would likely make it famous in history.

“Pure Holy Light actually had such powerful destructive force. It would seem that this is worthy of future research.”

The combat results were quite excellent as every single undead within its explosion radius was completely eradicated. The shock wave and extra Holy Light actually managed to reach Starwood City and kill off many aerial undead troops.

As for the mountain range which I still couldn’t remember the name of, this place was likely going to have its name changed in the future. Perhaps something like the Plains of Holy Light would be a more suitable name as the entire mountain range had been flattened. It would be a joke to continue calling this place “mountains”.

“A single explosion wouldn’t possibly have achieved such a powerful effect. This is probably a special effect of Holy Light synchronization or a chain reaction. The specifics require more research.”

The silly cat was actually quite happy. She obtained plenty of research data from that explosion, and apparently came up with some new ideas. Nothing else would be more attractive to a bottlenecked archmage than acquiring new knowledge.

Perhaps it was also thanks to Estrada’s support that this great explosion of Holy Light was far stronger than expected. I had only wanted to stall for time, and this spell completed that task wonderfully. With such powerful Holy Light, even Conservation’s Legend-ranked Winter Demons were instantly evaporated. There was no need to even mention the lower-level undead, as the entire mountain range had been flattened. It would be impossible for weak skeletons to survive.

Although the undead army of a Death Plane was nearly limitless, such a large-scale loss would hurt even an Undead Emperor. At the very least, Conservation would need to reorganize her army, and the living would gain precious additional time to prepare. The more time gained, the more advantageous it would be for the living.

However, I was annoyed because I also lost a significant amount.

“The energy level is only at 14%. Where am I supposed to find enough mana to recharge this?”

The unexpected power also meant an unexpected energy expenditure. As all those flowers of Holy Light bloomed, Yongye City’s energy level dropped at an astonishing speed. It was already fortunate that we hadn’t crashed into the ground. However, the battle wasn’t over yet, and where were we supposed to find enough mana to recharge?

That wasn’t even the most important part. My biggest loss was my nice little Mars of War. As an obedient child who listened to his father, he died for my cause on the rear defense line while hunting down the undead that had escaped. But, Mars was an undead as well, and he still wasn’t far enough from the explosion…

Alright, the rest was self-explanatory. At such a close distance, Mars was also instantly evaporated by the Holy Light. Luckily, he was an amalgamation of a collective will, so he didn’t truly die. Although it wasn’t necessary for him to do something like reincarnate through the Cycle of Reincarnation, I would be unable to use Mars in battle again for a while.

“There will be another battle soon, and a sufficient amount of souls will strengthen any undead’s soul. Mars will recover quickly. But, there really isn’t any method to help replenish the mana battery.”

Right now, Yongye City was one of the most important aces up my sleeve. Facing an Undead Emperor and her entire army by oneself would be utmost foolishness. Super tactical spells required an enormous mana expenditure. And, any mage tower that didn’t have sufficient mana reserves would be as useless as a mage without any mana.

“Shall we go catch all the magic swordsmen and steal their magic swords and small batteries?”

“That won’t be enough. Even if we steal from every one of them, it probably won’t provide us with even 10% energy.”

“Use Timlad’s small battleships’ engines and energy sources?”

“That would provide us with another 10% energy at the very most, and waste our airpower, something we’re really lacking right now. That would be a bad deal.”

“…Find some archmages to fill it up with mana. Fine, I know that’s not a good idea. How much were our previous calculations on how many SemiGod archmages it would take to fill the energy battery?”

“Twenty-six, or two hundred and sixty Myth-ranked archmages.”

“It would have been nice if this was the Mage Country. We’d be able to catch so many free laborers if we just went to any mage organization.”

“That wouldn’t be enough. If we were really at the Mage Country, it would have been enough if we just drugged all the Truth Overseers at the Truth Symposium. Those Truth Overseers are incomparable to average SemiGod mages.”

We kept tossing around somewhat illegal ideas. Although I didn’t feel much, our listeners didn’t exactly like what they heard. Not only that, the highest temporary acting commander of Starwood City, Salima, was also present. It was far too arrogant to discuss so many illegal activities right in front of her.

But right now, she could only smile wryly. This was because she knew the stories about Roland’s past, and if it wasn’t for Roland helping to defend Starwood City, it was likely that Starwood City would have fallen already.

Old Barton and Katerina were also sitting here with us. The old mercenary seemed to have blood infusing his whole face, and he radiated a visible killing intent. Noticing that something seemed to be off, I looked over in his direction.

“I killed some scumbags that intended to commit robbery and arson in these dire times. What a situation we’re in already, yet they’re still trying to do such awful things. The first thing they think about during an undead invasion isn’t how to save lives, but to take advantage of the situation to rob merchants and rape women.”

Barton chugged down half a jug of beer, but still had an angry expression on his face.

His daughter Katerina seemed like something was even more wrong. She nervously glanced at everyone around her, and even the tavern server bringing a plate of food startled her enough to make her suddenly stand up.

“I, am I in the wrong place!? A girl like me attending such an important conference…”

“No, you’re in the right place. I wanted you here for a reason.”

I looked at Katerina with great interest until she felt so awkward that she lowered her head and counted her own fingers. The other harvest I’d gained through the earlier battle was that I’d gained a new understanding of how Katerina existed due to the bone and mechanical giants’ corpses. Perhaps this would be an excellent topic of research.

At this moment, the door to our private room suddenly opened. A half-naked Timlad walked in while wiping off his sweat and apologizing.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m late. Reinforcing the city gate took twenty-six minutes longer than expected. I’ve brought a piece of good news. Yep, I think it’s two pieces of good news, but I also have some bad news.”

The fatigued great engineer directly sat down next to the door.

“What’s the good news?”

“We have some powerful reinforcements coming. I just received this news. They’ll possibly be here even earlier than Sala Dukedom’s reinforcements. Their power is absolutely reliable.”

“They?”

When I heard the word “They”, my long years of experience with pitfalls caused me to feel a powerful ominous premonition, to the point where I wanted to run away immediately.

“What’s the other good news? Wait, tell me the bad news first.”

Timlad nodded, but he immediately smiled evilly.

“The bad news is that they’ve heard the news about you due to the letter you sent me with your seal. They’re probably not coming for the purpose of reinforcing us, but rather to have a reckoning with you…”

“Who is it!?”

I suddenly paused for a moment. If it was the person I was thinking about, I would likely have to plan my escape immediately.

“Reyne. She also brought her personal guards. Their power level is absolutely reliable.”

I paused in surprise to hear this, but immediately relaxed. Reyne was just an immature brat; so what if she was angry at me? Although it would indeed seem that I hadn’t treated her well, as I gave her the heavy responsibility of the Mist Kingdom without even telling her anything, didn’t this mean that I valued her and wanted her to grow on her own? She didn’t need to be angry at me to such an extent, did she?

“Tsk, she wants to have a reckoning with me? The brat’s gotten rebellious. Oh, wasn’t there another piece of good news?”

“Yes, apart from Reyne’s reinforcements, we’re getting some even stronger reinforcements.”

“Who’s that?”

“Reyne knew that she wouldn’t be able to stop you by herself, so she directly told Auntie… I mean, Sister Amelia. And, Sister Amelia is the type to directly act, so you understand…”

I slowly stood up and started walking outside, but the bratty engineer who had grown to be a buff man blocked the door with that evil grin of his.

“Boss, please don’t run away from your own troubles. You know just how they’ll deal with me if I let you run away. I still want them to say some nice things about me in front of my sister— cough cough, what I mean is, what will the humans do here without you? They still need you to protect them.”

“…I’m not running away, how could you say that I’m running away? Aliens are coming, and an Undead Emperor is coming. I want to find a phone booth to transform into Ultraman and save the world!”

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