「An earthen dome?」

Rei, after annihilating the Dragon Knights, arrived at the battlefield in headquarters of the Bestir Empire’s army ahead of Elena, who was on horseback.

Turning to look down from Set in the sky, the first thing that caught his eye was a huge earthen dome about 5m in diameter. The ambush forces were attacking the dome, but most of them only damaged it lightly. The next moment, the damage easily repaired itself.

Because the ambush unit was focusing their attacks on the dome, they were naturally attacked by the soldiers and knights of the Bestir Empire.

In the first place, as this was an ambush attack, they had to quickly defeat General Kastom, the enemy chief commander, and take him prisoner. They also had to finish this ambush while the main forces of the Bestir Empire’s army were still on the front lines.

「……Well, if we don’t make it quick, we’ll run out of time.」

As Rei looked around the battlefield, Set gave a cry towards a particular location.

「Gururu~」

Guessing that Set wanted to point him towards something, Rei turned to look over as well. There, he saw Siminar, the commander of the ambush unit, brandishing his sword at someone who looked like a mage while busily giving out orders to the surrounding ambush force.

「Set.」

「Guru~!」

With one words, Set understood what Rei meant. With a cry, he flapped his wings as he descended to the ground.

「Hah-!」

As soon as Rei was got close, he swung the Death Scythe, cutting off the head of a nearby Bestir Empire knight.

Leaving behind the headless body of the knight, which started bleeding like a fountain, Rei arrived at Siminar’s location, where he was giving orders to those nearby.

「Siminar, what’s the situation?」

「It’s not good. We’ll run out of steam if we don’t do anything.」

Saying that, Siminar turned towards the earthen dome.

「Is the chief commander of the Bestir Empire’s army inside there by any chance?」

「Ah, that’s right. The chief commander of the Bestir Empire’s army was a man called General Kastom. We had no information that he could use magic.」

「We can leave the questions for later. We should assume that news that we’ve attack here will be known by the front lines. I’m afraid we’ll have to kill General Kastom before soldiers come back from the front.」

At Rei’s words, Siminar’s expression tighted as he turned to look at Rei.

「Rei, can you do something about that dirt?」

「Well, I’ll see. I don’t know if I’ll be able to, but I’ll do what I can.」

「I leave it to you. In the meantime, we’re still on the battlefield……ah-!」

During their conversation, a soldier suddenly attacked Siminar with a spear in hand.

Seeing Siminar talking leisurely on the battlefield and wearing high class armour, the soldier probably guessed that he was the commander of the ambush unit. He wasn’t wrong, and his choice to attack while Siminar was talking wasn’t wrong either. But……

「Too slow.」

With a murmur, the Death Scythe struck. The spear that the soldier had been holding was sliced in half.

「Damn it!」

The soldier threw away the remains of his spear as he drew his sword from his waist to slash at Rei. However, as he did that, a whip like sword extended out from nowhere and slashed the soldier’s neck before the sword could reach Rei.

A sword whip. Sometimes it was a sword, sometimes it was a whip, as far as Rei knew, there was only one person who had mastered such a magic weapon.

Then, turning to look at the direction from where the sword whip had come from, he saw the person he expected.

「Elena, that was fast.」

「Was I? Even then, I only came over after defeating my enemies. What’s going on? It seems like we’re being pushed back.」

Elena swung her sword whip as she spoke. Her blade stretched out like a whip, slashing the neck of a soldier wielding a bow, creating a fountain of blood.

In addition, near Rei, Set also moved quickly, crushing the helmet and head of a knight while wrapping his tail around a soldier’s legs and swinging him as a weapon.

Due to efforts of Set and several adventurers who had been left behind to guard Siminar, the area around him and Rei become some sort of a safe zone where he could talk calmly, even in this battlefield.

However, it wasn’t an absolute safe zone, as could be seen by the soldier who had managed to sneak in with a spear.

Looking at the surroundings for a moment, Siminar called out to Elena.

Siminar had some feelings towards Elena, but he couldn’t afford to think about that in this situation. He spoke with a serious expression.

「Elena-dono, General Kastom, the chief commander of the Bestir Empire’s army, is inside that dirt dome. However, that dome is quite sturdy and it seems that it will use dirt from the surroundings to repair any damage it takes. I’ll be leaving it to Rei to destroy the dome. Elena-dono, I would like to use your strength as the General Princess to focus on reducing the number of enemies in the area.」

「I understand. Because we are an ambush unit, it was unavoidable that we would have a small number of people. I’ll do my best. ……Rei, I’ll leave that to you.」

「Ah. It’s just a lump of dirt, I’ll do what I can. Set-!」

「GURURU-!」

Set responded to Rei’s call as he knocked several soldiers aside with single swipe of his forefeet.

Gently stroking Set’s head, Rei got on his back, leaving Elena and Siminar at their current location as he moved towards the earthen dome.

Along the way, he passed by several ambush unit members fighting against soldiers from the main camp. Swinging the Death Scythe, Rei cut down some of the soldiers to help his allies.

Only those with great skill had been chosen to be in the ambush unit and they didn’t miss that chance to launch their attacks. Although it was only for the short term, the ambush force held the advantage in several places around the battlefield.

Elena looked at Rei and Set from behind before riding into the battlefield on her warhorse, as if not wanting to lose to them.

In terms of pure attack range, her sword whip had much greater reach than the Death Scythe. Swinging her sword whip, she gave appropriate orders to her allies in the ambush unit as she displayed the greatness of the General Princess to her enemies and allies in a battlefield where they were greatly outnumbered.

 

 

「……This is?」

Rei muttered to himself as he looked at the earthen dome.

Having already gotten off Set, Set was left to guard the surrounding area while Rei did something about the dome in question.

In fact, even right now, Set swooped down at a soldier that was aiming his bow at Rei from a distance, crushing the soldier’s head.

Despite the noise on the battlefield, Rei tried to touched the earthen dome to see how it worked……

「Tch-!」

The moment Rei tried to touch the dome with his hand, the earthen wall turned into 50cm long spikes as they tried to stab him.

Rei jumped back in a hurry, distancing himself from the spikes.

Fortunately, the spikes didn’t shoot out but were absorbed back into the wall as it returned to its original state.

(When I looked at it earlier, it didn’t seem like it could attack me……why can’t it shoot out the spikes? He can’t control it unless he’s touching the dirt? No, in that case, how did he know that I was an enemy? If he’s inside the dome, he shouldn’t be able to see outside. No, I don’t know if it’s magic or some magic item, but I should assume he has some means of telling apart enemies and allies.)

Taking some distance, Rei swung the Death Scythe quickly.

「Flying Slash!」

The Flying Slash that shot out left a deep scar on the earthen dome, but it wasn’t enough to destroy it in a single attack. Gradually, it repaired itself.

(I see, the repair speed isn’t that fast.)

When observed by Rei, it looked like the dirt that formed the dome seemed to fill up the scar little by little.

(However, the more it repairs itself, the thinner the dome should get. In that case……)

Next, Rei turned to look not at the dome……but at the area where the dome had formed. In other words, the ground. Naturally, the ground was made of dirt.

(In other words, the dirt used to repair itself is being replenished from the surroundings. If it’s like this, it will definitely be able to hold out until reinforcements arrive.)

Thinking that far, some question appeared in his mind.

Why was the chief commander of the Bestir Empire hiding instead of taking command of the defensive battle?

In such a situation where the general hid in an absolutely safe position, the morale of the soldiers would fall. In fact, despite the ambush unit being made up of elite fighters, their numbers were far less than the number of soldiers in the enemy’s camp. To be only an equal match against the ambush unit, it would normally have been impossible considering the difference in military strength.

However, given that Elena, the feared General Princess, Set, the Griffon, and Rei, who had made a name for himself in this war, were in the ambush unit, maybe it was natural that the enemy’s morale would fall.

(Anyway, it repairs itself, but it doesn’t do so quickly. If I get too close to it, it will attack with spikes, but those aren’t too fast either. It also can’t create spikes unless there is enough dirt to do so either. ……Then, there’s only one thing to do. That is……)

Grasping the Death Scythe, Rei stared at the earthen dome formed by magic power.

「Smash it with enough force that it can’t repair itself fast enough!」

At the same time as he said those words, he swung the Death Scythe again.

「Flying Slash!」

Same as the attack he had used previously, the slash caused major damage to the earthen dome. At the same time, Rei dashed forward, shortening his distance to the earthen dome.

Perhaps it sensed that Rei was approaching, spikes grew out to intercept him. However, the Flying Slash had damaged the dome it greatly and repairing itself might have been its priority. The speed of the spikes growing towards Rei was clearly slower than before.

Avoiding the spikes with a half turn, Rei used that momentum to smash the Death Scythe against the earthen wall as he activated the skill he wanted.

「Power Slash!」

As the skill activated, Rei struck at the location where the Flying Slash had landed, blasting apart the dirt wall rather than slicing through it.

Power Slash was a skill that reduced the sharpness of the Death Scythe’s blade but increase its impact. That effect was fully displayed as the earthen dome was unable to withstand the damage while it was still trying to repair itself after the Flying Slash had hit it. The dirt wall exploded with a bang around the location where the Flying Slash had hit.

To stop the dirt wall from repairing itself, Rei slashed around the opening several times with the magic empowered Death Scythe, eventually opening up a hole big enough for him to enter. ……Inside, Rei saw more than 20 bodies lying on the ground, their skin wrapped tightly against shrivelled bodies and bones.

「……What?」

Rei was stunned for a moment at the unexpected sight.

One of the mummified corpses on the ground had a bracelet around its wrist that seemed to be pulsating. At the same time, Rei felt magic power being drawn out from his body.

At that point, Rei realised what had happened.

「They ran out of magic power because too much was absorbed from them. After they ran out of magic power, it still kept trying to draw more, so it ended up taking their life force and turning them into mummies.」

Rei muttered as he suddenly turned to look at the bracelet that was absorbing his magic power.

Rei didn’t know, but the Behemoth Bracelet had been a magic item created by the alchemists of the Bestir Empire using the essence of their technology. It had the ability to freely manipulate dirt, but contrary to the alchemist’s original intention of using it to create spikes to attack the enemy, General Kastom had used it to make a huge dome. Because of that, the prototype magic item had gone haywire and started to absorbed all the magic power and life force of General Kastom and everyone around him, leading to this disaster.

However, even such a bracelet that greedily absorbed magic power was unable to absorb all of Rei’s enormous magic power.

Piki-, pikiki-.

With such sounds, the bracelet rapidly cracked before falling apart the next moment.

At the same time, the effects of the Behemoth Bracelet faded and the earthen dome, which had been strengthened by magic power, began to collapse.

「Tch-!」

At that moment, Rei immediately dashed out in a hurry through the gap in the dome he had made……before the earthen dome collapsed on itself.

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