Chapter 190. Middle Game (5)

Beyond the countless hordes of magical beasts that covered the ground.

Kwaaaajijijijik!!

A giant hand emerged from the darkness, tearing through the veil and crushing a huge tree in the forest.

For a moment, it felt as if a silence had fallen over all the freelancers in the area at its mere appearance.

In the middle of the battlefield, a freelancer with wide eyes muttered with a look of lost will, his arms hanging limp.

“W-what in the world is that……!”

Enoch narrowed his eyes.

It was a much larger magical beast than he had expected.

Its huge feet, which trampled the ground, appeared first, followed by a jet-black shell that scattered a green light.

It was literally the size of a house. Its massive body was comparable to a 15-story apartment building.

“That size is ‘Monarch’ class, isn’t it?”

“Crazy, where the hell did that thing come from!”

The moment the shouts of the freelancers on the battlefield pierced his ears, Enoch turned his head to the side at the feeling of his sleeve being tugged.

There, he met the eyes of Sirocco, who was wagging her wolf tail and her eyes shining sharply.

“Hey!”

Sirocco asked, crossing her arms.

“I’ve heard it before, but calling those magical beasts Exceed or Monarch class. What does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you later. The situation is urgent.”

“Hmph, alright. Then just one thing. That thing.”

Sirocco’s ears perked up, and she turned her head to look at the huge magical beast leader and asked.

“It’s a strong one, right? Incredibly.”

“Yes. That’s for sure.”

Enoch nodded.

It was a magical beast of such a colossal size that it could never have hidden itself if not for the natural camouflage of the trees in the border forest, which were dozens of times larger than the trees that were already tens of meters tall.

Enoch leaned forward and said.

“That’s the leader.”

Sirocco must have noticed it too. That thing was at the very least the entity that controlled the creatures on this battlefield.

“Hmph, so that thing is the commander or whatever who attacked the outsourcing district with flying magical beasts and sent the detached force?”

Enoch narrowed his eyes at Sirocco’s sharp question. It was a question that didn’t even require a moment of thought.

“No. Probably not.”

In the first place, if it were truly the commander, there would be no reason for it to reveal itself on this battlefield where they were gaining the upper hand.

At the very least, that thing could be an entity that controlled the magical beasts, but it was not a commander who devised strategies.

The moment Enoch was convinced of that, April, who was looking through her scope, suddenly shouted from the side.

“Wait, near it! Look near its feet!!”

Only then did Enoch also realize something.

Near the massive body that was emitting a translucent green light as it moved, the dust of the plain was rising, swirling around its huge ankles.

I could immediately tell why.

“……It’s a royal guard.”

A freelancer muttered, as if in a daze.

The magical beasts that had gathered around the ankles of the huge magical beast.

Another swarm of them was densely packed, raising dust and thoroughly protecting the magical beast.

Soon, from behind the army of magical beasts that was advancing, covering the ground, the huge silhouette, with the moon at its back, roared in an unknown, low voice.

- ────! ───, ──────!!

That was the signal.

As the magical beasts advanced like a swarm of black ants, confusion and fear began to sweep through the freelancer’s formation.

“W-what is that!”

“They never said there was a monster like that!!”

Enoch also had a question.

In the original work, there was definitely no mention of a magical beast leader.

Could it be that the Victoria infantry had been annihilated before that leader had a chance to appear, so it hadn’t even had a chance to show up in the original work?

If not?

But his thoughts were short-lived, dissolving into the chaotic scene unfolding around him.

“…W-where is everyone? Where are you?”

Enoch silently turned his head as he watched a freelancer girl, even younger than Sirocco, wander aimlessly through the flames of the battlefield, searching for her interim.

While crossing the battlefield to grasp the situation and head to the rear, he found a freelancer boy who had just begun to mutate.

Next to him, freelancers from the same interim were arguing with each other.

A young woman in her twenties was aiming her rifle at the mutating freelancer, and a girl who looked younger than Enoch was blocking her way, pleading with tears in her eyes.

“Hey, at least let him die as a human…!”

“N-no! Rain can still be saved. We promised to work as a pair in the future! So you can’t kill him!”

The next moment, the girl’s body, whose head had been severed by the mutated magical beast from behind, spun like a top and fell.

And the magical beast immediately leaped at the female freelancer who was frozen, aiming her rifle.

“Aaaah!”

The female freelancer’s eyes, who had panicked at the event that had unfolded right in front of her, were filled with horror.

She, with her hair tied in two pigtails and slung over her shoulders, tried to stumble backward, but it was too late to avoid the shell blade on the wrist of the charging magical beast.

“Haaap!!”

Just then, Alicia brushed past Enoch, aimed her lance at an angle, and charged like the wind.

Sweeping through the hazy smoke of the battlefield, she instantly closed in on the mindless magical beast.

The moment the jet-black lance, which was accelerating, pierced the enemy in a straight line, a dazzling flash exploded.

With the roar of mana and explosives erupting at once, an orange flame scattered over the hellish scene, cleanly wiping it out.

The freelancer who had almost died a moment ago stared at Alicia with wide eyes, then repeatedly bowed to her and Enoch in gratitude.

“Th-thank you, soldier! Thank you, Direct Lineage Member!”

Meanwhile, April, who had been frantically sniping the magical beasts in front from Enoch’s side, seemed to have just turned around at the sound of the explosion, and her eyes widened as she turned her head.

Then, looking back, she seemed to have noticed what had just happened and bit her lip slightly.

“Ugh.”

“What, did they die? It was the interim right next to us.”

Just then, from the side, Damastes walked out, shouldering his double-bladed axe.

The characteristic black ashes of magical beast corpses were on his axe, crumbling into the air. It was clear that he had performed remarkably.

“This is why people with too much meddling can’t survive.”

He frowned with his thick eyebrows and kicked the freelancer who had just had her neck torn off.

“This isn’t a battle. It’s already a war. I’ve been hired in a conflict zone before, so I know. If you worry about others in a place like this, you’ll be the first to die.”

From the side, April, who had lowered her sniper rifle, glared at him with a sharp sound.

“As expected, your mindset is the best, old man.”

“You’re talking nonsense. Isn’t it our duty as freelancers to survive and profit? What’s wrong with that mindset?”

“As expected.”

April turned her head slightly to the side and shot back sharply.

“…I don’t get along with you people.”

Just then, Alicia approached Enoch’s side.

Her long, ash-brown hair fluttering, Alicia calmly opened her mouth as she looked at the magical beasts and their leader that were beginning to swarm the plain.

“Large enemy visually confirmed, encounter. Your orders!”

Enoch slowly lifted his head.

Indeed, there was no more time to just observe, no more time to just think.

“First, let’s move. At the very least, if that leader intends to advance, we have to stop it here.”

“Hmph, alright.”

Then, from the side, Sirocco, her ruby-like eyes shining in the darkness, approached and stood tall in front of Enoch.

Then, lifting her slender yet full, white, and smooth thigh high to the side of her waist, Sirocco coldly glared at the enemies before her.

“I’ll kick all of those things away myself.”

However, Enoch shook his head.

“No.”

“What did you say?”

Enoch calmly glanced at her and replied.

“Didn’t you hear me? Wait for my orders. You can’t do it alone yet. You have to fight while watching the tide of battle.”

At those words, Sirocco’s ears perked up once, and she glanced at Enoch, her eyes shining clearly.

“Hmph, what is it!”

Then, revealing her small fangs, she shouted.

“I can be of help!”

“I know. But no. It’s impossible for you right now.”

Enoch replied coldly, but Sirocco, finding his words even more incomprehensible, wagged her tail greatly.

“Hmph, what’s that? How would you know that? I can beat that thing without a scratch!”

“Listen to me.”

Enoch calmly added, enduring Sirocco’s somewhat chilly gaze.

“I’m saying this because you’re precious to me, Sirocco.”

“U-ugh!”

Perhaps because the words were a bit sudden, Sirocco’s cheeks instantly turned beet red, and she whipped her head away.

But as if to pull herself together, Sirocco slapped her pale cheek and glared at the enemy.

“S-still! I’m strong!”

For a moment, as if she didn't know why she had reacted that way, she shook her head back and forth, then, with her face flushed, she glared sharply at the advancing leader and shouted.

“I don’t know what this ‘awakening’ or whatever that everyone was talking about before is, but I have to get stronger! For my tribe…”

Sirocco glanced back with a sharp look.

“…and for you, who called me precious!”

It was then that Sirocco, who had shouted that, kicked off the ground without giving him a chance to stop her.

“I’ll definitely be of help to you!”

Sirocco, with a ring of red light around the ankle of her white, bare leg, charged towards the enemy lines like a flash of light.

For a moment, Enoch, who had met her faint gaze as she looked back at him, gritted his teeth slightly.

Sirocco’s sudden, impulsive action.

This was definitely unexpected.

“Ugh. What now?”

April, who had run out from the side and was looking back and forth between Sirocco and Enoch, asked urgently.

“D-Direct Lineage Member. What should we do?”

“It can’t be helped. Since it has come to this, we have to stop the enemy quickly before the situation worsens.”

“Then what’s the plan?”

“I wonder.”

Enoch lifted his head and accelerated his thoughts rapidly.

Sirocco’s impulsive action, the appearance of a leader-class magical beast, the Victoria army’s crushing defeat, the faster-than-expected collapse of the freelancer’s formation.

The plans that had been made in advance, the plans that could have been made, were all in disarray. Now was the time to respond with improvisation.

“I have an idea.”

For a moment, the beginning of the chess game he had played with Shepherd flashed through Enoch’s mind, and he smiled faintly.

Orthodoxy and heterodoxy.

For whatever reason, if Shepherd’s orthodox method had failed, now was the time to prove whether heterodoxy was the right answer, in our own way.

Enoch turned his gaze to the side.

The place where he and his squad members were standing was in the rear, a little away from the front lines.

There, other freelancers who had just been fighting the magical beasts had hastily retreated and were regrouping at a temporary base where they had laid out their supplies.

“Damn it, there’s no end to them even if we kill them!”

“And they don't die easily. How are we supposed to stop that leader-class thing!”

“Is that thing why the Victoria army got wiped out? Because of that monstrous leader?!”

They were shouting at each other, on the verge of a breakdown. Enoch walked towards them without a word.

“W-wait a minute! Direct Lineage Member, what are you trying to do…!”

From the side, Lily, who was trembling in Nano’s arms but had noticed something, screamed for a moment.

Enoch strode up to them and placed a hand on one of their shoulders. They, who were extremely tense, turned around with a start, then sighed and said.

“W-what, I thought it was someone else, if it isn't the direct lineage of the Elsyde?”

“That’s right. There’s no time, so let’s get to the point.”

Enoch looked at them calmly and said.

“There’s a way to stop them. For now, follow my words. Is that possible?”

“What? W-what makes you think we can trust you…!!”

Immediately, some of the freelancers who were finishing their regrouping voiced their opposition. But from the side, a gruff voice silenced their complaints head-on.

“Interesting.”

One of the freelancers looked to the side and exclaimed in surprise.

“D-Damastes! You!!”

From the side, Damastes was approaching.

Perhaps he had come to resupply, leading his interim, as his muscular body was covered in black ashes, and his eyes were shining fiercely.

“Anyway, many of the interim leaders are already dead or unable to fight. There’s a problem.”

“A problem?”

Damastes pulled out a white earpiece from his ear and threw it on the ground.

“Yes. As you all know, for some reason, the communicators aren’t working. Needless to say, the lines built with communication magic are also down. The situation has become a complete mess.”

“Communication disruption, a kind of jamming?”

For a moment, Enoch touched the communicator in his ear.

Indeed, he hadn't used the communicator yet, so he didn’t know, but it seemed that the reason why the freelancer legion was being pushed back so easily was partly due to this unexplained lack of communication.

“That’s probably why we can’t contact Shepherd.”

“That’s right, Direct Lineage Member. I don’t know what tricks those magical beasts pulled, though.”

Damastes glanced at Enoch and said.

“I don’t like the noble-blooded direct lineage, but right now, our small-scale command structure has collapsed. It would be a rational choice to unify our operations.”

Then, as if to agree with his opinion, another freelancer who was finishing his regrouping from the side raised his hand.

“E-excuse me!”

A female freelancer with her long hair tied simply in the middle.

She looked familiar, and I realized it was the female freelancer whom Enoch had saved by a hair’s breadth when the battle had first begun.

“I-I also received help from Lord Enoch earlier. If it weren’t for Lord Enoch, I would have definitely died.”

She brushed back her tied hair once, looked at Enoch, and said.

“So, even if he is the direct lineage of the Elsyde, I don’t think he would treat us from the outsourcing district as mere consumables.”

“…Tch, alright. I get it.”

Not long after, some of the opposing freelancer factions, as if convinced, slowly turned their heads towards Enoch.

“Then, let’s hear it, Direct Lineage Member.”

Enoch nodded and, looking at the other freelancers, calmly stated his conclusion.

“That Monarch-class leader is the one giving the orders, but it knows how to read the tide of battle.”

“So what does that mean?”

“My squad member, Sirocco, is heading towards it. In this situation, if the front line temporarily starts to be pushed back, it will judge the situation as unfavorable and retreat.”

“A-a guess?”

Enoch nodded.

“It’s not without basis. Isn’t it worth a try? It’s not like there are any other options.”

Of course, besides the evidence he had presented to them, Enoch also had a reason to believe.

For example, he knew enough about how to generally defeat the leaders of the magical beasts in the original work.

Enoch slowly lifted his head.

And from now on, it was time to make full use of that knowledge.