Chapter 186

    The next few minutes were a slog. Every single ‘communication disruption’ bullet took a huge amount of effort to make. She was getting faster every time she did it, because she was getting used to the way the different types of mana needed to feed into each other... but it was a very concentration-intensive process that made Alice wonder if this was really the most efficient use of her time. After creating her third, Alice was starting to question if she was having a big impact on the battlefield at all.

    The biggest benefit of her ‘disruption bullets,’ as far as she could tell, was that it created infighting in the monstrous horde. The monsters acting as an organized army created a big problem for the humans trying to fend them off. However, this wasn’t the ‘natural’ state of affairs for monsters. In normal cases, monsters just attacked anything with mana – including other monsters. If Alice could create widespread chaos, making all of the monsters attack each other, that probably would have ended the siege of monsters in a single attack.

    But she couldn’t do that. Maybe it was possible, but it definitely wasn’t something she could accomplish right now. Right now, it took Alice almost ten seconds to craft a single disruption bullet.

    Despite her worries, she kept working at it... and started to worry less as she observed the effects of her actions. She started to realize that she wasn’t just disrupting a monster or two. With the help of Ethan, Allira, and Jonathan, their group was already firmly wedged at the edge of the battlefield, taking pressure off of the defenders. With the help of Alice’s disruption bullets, if she aimed them at the right monsters, she could create small areas of disorder at exactly the right times in the monster horde. Perhaps more importantly... she could also target dangerous monsters. Specifically, those that had assimilated some System mana and had started creating Perks.

    Alice had a massive number of advantages when it came to identifying some types of mana. She had a ridiculous number of Perks and Achievements dedicated explicitly to helping her identify magic abnormalities, after all. This made it easier for Alice to identify potential threats. Then, she could turn those problems into wildcards that attacked their allies.

    After she started targeting Perk-wielding monsters, she started to really notice how impactful her actions were. The disruption a monster’s Perk could provide was much greater than simply killing a monster. Many monsters had more passive Perks, which meant that they didn’t display an overwhelming difference between them and their monstrous kin. However, there were also a good number of Monsters with active Perks, where they had some sort of major upside in exchange for a long cooldown. If Alice managed to get those monsters to turn on the others, and the monster’s Perk wasn’t on cooldown, the entire battle formation of monsters in the area would get thrown into chaos. It was an easy way to inflict the maximum amount of damage with the minimum amount of mana. She wasn’t eliminating threats anywhere near as quickly as Ethan or Allira, but she was spending far less mana and Perks to do so.

    Alice started to lose herself in the flow of the fight, constantly sniping problematic monsters, and the group kept slowly moving forward as they cut down a larger and larger number of monsters.

    Until finally, the group arrived at the wall itself.

    Alice glanced at the defenders, and saw that most parts of the wall were still struggling to keep things completely under control. However, things hadn’t reached a breaking point. More importantly, it seemed like the monsters were starting to run out of steam.

    While it hadn’t originally occurred to her, Alice realized that monsters actually had a major shortcoming in protracted battles. Monsters were utterly reliant on magic to keep functioning as effective combatants... and magic didn’t regenerate very quickly. They were enemies that could do a terrifying amount of damage quickly, but once they ran out of mana, the tables started to turn.

    The group’s impact on the battlefield was also noticeable. The defenders on the wall nearest to them were actually having moments where they could take breaks, resupply things, and reinforce other sections of the wall. As Alice observed the rest of the wall, she smiled. The battle was winnable.

    “@#*$()#@! @*#$(# @#*$(#@?” Called one of the defenders, from the top of the wall, startling Alice out of her thoughts.

    “@#*$#@ @#(*$@#)(!# !@#()%#@$*(!” yelled Allira. “But Illvarian would be better!”

    “Illvarian?” asked the defender. “I speak semi-fluently! I don’t know some complicated words though. Thank you for assisting us! Who are you?”

    “We are Immortal Ethan, Immortal Allira, and Immortal Jonathan. Allira and I should have been expected to pass by here sometime this month!” yelled Ethan, as he sent another wave of shrapnel into the nearby monsters. “We’re also bringing along my apprentice and one of her friends. We also picked up Immortal Jonathan along the way, as well as his family.”

    The man frowned, as if he was trying to scour his memory for any mention of their group, and his eyes settled on Jonathan for a particularly long period of time. It was rather unusual for a group of travelers to ‘pick up’ an Immortal. Finally, his eyes lit up.

    “I remember now! A week ago, former [Commander] Hadlock mentioned an Illvarian Immortal might pass through our country, and that we needed to be alert. Sorry, with all of the chaos in the country, it has been hard to keep track of things recently.” The man tried to smile at the group, although he ended up looking more exhausted than happy. “It’s good to see friendly faces here. Especially Immortals! System knows that if there was ever a time we needed Immortals, it’s now.”

    “Former [Commander]?” asked Alice.

    “He died yesterday fighting on the wall. I got promoted this morning.” The man grimaced. “He was a good man.”

    Ethan frowned as he glanced at the monsters again. “Sorry to hear that. Losing good people always feels bad.” He paused for a moment, giving the man a few seconds to school his expression back to normal. Then, Ethan continued. “Any information you can share about the horde of monsters here?”

    “Not much beyond what you can see. We first caught sight of them three days ago. They attacked two days ago. Luckily, they get just as tired as we do during a fight, if not more so. They usually break off the attack whenever about half of them are running low on mana. That way they can still retaliate if we try to take advantage of their exhaustion. We still try every night. So during daytime, they attack us, and during night time, we attack them.” The man grimaced. “The last few days have been hell, Honored Immortals.”

    “I can imagine,” said Ethan. “The three of us, as well as our travelling companions, will hold down this corner of the battlefield. Is there anything your troops need that we could help with?”

    “Well, I don’t suppose you can find the actual alphas and assassinate them?” asked the man.

    Allira laughed. “If we could track them down and assassinate them, we would have done so already. They seem to be hidden behind their other monsters, and they’re unlikely to be weak in combat themselves. We’re Immortals, not miracle workers.”

    As the group stepped into the city, the [Commander] who had been communicating with them from the top of the wall ran over to them. His sides heaved unsteadily as he ran closer, until he arrived in front of them.

    “Honored Immortals and their travelling companions. It’s a pleasure to see you in the city, and...” he trailed off, and Alice got the distinct impression he was trying to remember what he was supposed to say. After pausing for an awkward period of silence, the man sighed, and rubbed his forehead. “The [King] would like to see you. If you’re interested in meeting him, he is available now. If you wish to rest for the day, you may instead see him tomorrow after breakfast.”

    “Now is fine,” said Ethan.

    The group moved towards the palace. The first few times Alice had been inside of a palace, she had been a lot more interested and intimidated, but this time, she found herself feeling oddly tired. There wasn’t much to Fendrallia’s capital that she hadn’t already seen elsewhere. The palace looked like it was styled after Illvaria’s palace, but with a considerably lower budget and less skilled [Enchanters] and [Architects]. The enchantments were weaker and lower in quantity, the building was supported by less System mana, and the decorations were simpler in design.

    Alice found herself bemused by the fact that she was now comparing palace architecture between countries. Most people never entered even one palace, but Alice had now seen enough of them to start comparing them to each other.

    When the group met the [King], Alice realized that the other party was a balding man who seemed to be in his late forties. He had a somewhat dignified appearance, despite the light reflecting off of his bald head, and he had a firm look in his eyes.

    When the group entered, the man gave them a deep bow.

    “Thank you for assisting the city during its siege, Immortals of Illvaria. You didn’t have any obligation to help, but you did anyway. I appreciate that.”

    “It was no problem. Helping other humans fend off monster swarms is natural during times of crisis,” said Ethan.

    The [King] simply sighed. “I wish that I had more information, but... well, things have been complicated recently. May I ask how long you intend to stay?”

    Alice frowned. Why was the [King] asking how long the group could stay? That was an odd question. Based on the off-handed remarks Ethan had made while they travelled, the group was expected to stay a few days, at most, in each territory before moving on. Alice had honestly gotten the impression that Ethan intended to move on that night, or perhaps the next morning. The [King] had obviously communicated with them when he gave them permission to move through the country. Why was he...?

    He’s hoping we’ll stay longer, so that we’ll work as a deterrent for the monster swarm, Alice realized, with a start. The [King] was hoping that the group would stay inside of his city and help him keep his subjects safe during this chaotic time.

    That made Alice think.

    The group needed to keep moving. If Alice was ever going to have any hope of defusing this crisis and fixing it at its root, she needed to have access to every scrap of teaching and information she could access. That meant getting to their original destination, so that she could learn how to make artificial magic seeds and thus finally learn how to make Class seeds.

    But on the other hand... was it right to tell a [King] no when he was asking them to help preserve the lives of his people? At the very least, it seemed incredibly cold to do so. Sure, Alice’s actions might help save people later, and on a much larger scale – but at the same time, leaving now might doom the current inhabitants of this city. That made the decision far less clear-cut than she would have liked. It wasn’t a case with an obvious ‘no,’ the way it was for human experimentation. It also wasn’t an obvious ‘yes,’ the way healing the village on the way to Fendrallia’s capital had been. That had cost relatively little time, and the group had been preparing to rest for the night anyway.

    This was... ambiguous.

    Before Alice could continue to ponder the matter, however, Ethan sighed, and shook his head.

    “My apologies, but we only intend to stay the night. We eliminated several hundred monsters already, and our mission is of utmost importance. However, we can fight again tomorrow as we’re heading out, and we can carry messages to any other nearby cities. Do you have a message you wish to give?”

    The [King] hesitated for a few moments, as he looked at Ethan’s face. It looked as if he was searching for a way to change Ethan’s decision. However, he didn’t seem to find what he was searching for.

    Finally, the [King] sighed. He looked disappointed, but he nodded his head.

    “Very well. I will have someone deliver a message to you tomorrow morning, which I request you carry to the nearest city with a functioning garrison or military. Would that be possible?”

    “Of course. After all, we’re all still humans. While we need to keep going, our group can at least help while we move along.”

    Ethan smiled, while the [King]’s forehead creased in worry. Less than a minute later, the group was dismissed from the palace to return to their inn for the night.