“Urgent news, urgent news!!”

“What’s the matter?”

“The 21st unit has been annihilated!”

“What?”

The face of Teur Rognir, currently considered the most likely candidate for the next tower head as a result of strong competitors dying one after another or being driven out due to mistakes, twitched.

He received the report submitted by his subordinate, and soon his hands trembled.

The content of the report was truly horrific.

The death of 4th rank mage, Bruha Rognir.

Also, the 3rd rank mages and skilled knights in charge of his escort were annihilated.

Forces below 2nd rank mostly survived, but due to the entire upper echelon being wiped out, strategic movements other than joining other units were impossible.

Above all.

“…A plain-looking magic doll suddenly invaded, rampaged through various parts of the castle, cut off Bruha’s head, and escaped?”

Teur was dumbfounded.

Pondering where to start pointing out issues, he first asked the question that came to mind, “But why am I only hearing about this now? Shouldn’t a report have been sent here immediately when the battle occurred?”

“T-that’s because at first they didn’t consider it an incident worth reporting, and by the time the situation became serious, they no longer had the capacity to report.”

After the gray old man and the Witch of the North returned to the Tower of Control and went into seclusion saying they had preparations to make, Teur was put in charge of overseeing the frontlines as their proxy.

And naturally, there were no cases where every little thing like “a sentry on site discovered a trespasser” was reported to the general headquarters.

Such things should be judged by the local commander or summarized and reported later in regular reports. If every unit reported minor incidents in real-time, the headquarters would physically be buried under work and die.

In that sense, not immediately reporting “just one magic doll infiltrating a castle guarded by thousands of troops” was not illogical to understand at first. Though it turned out to be the worst in the end.

Moreover, the bad news didn’t end there.

“The commander of the 24th unit, Lord Herunal, has fallen! The culprit is Gale Elilaz’s familiar, the White Knight!”

“The 26th unit, which received a support request from Lord Herunal, spotted a flying ship while moving! They tried to shoot it down but were countered instead! The enemy forces seemed to be a Lion Duke bloodline member exhibiting terrifying strength and soldiers enhanced by enchantments!”

“They report that no matter how many enemies they took down, new forces kept being reinforced from the ship, and judging by the bizarre appearance of the soldiers and the trait of no corpses remaining, a survivor reports they might be undead!”

“Additional battle has occurred! During engagement with enemy soldiers, large-scale curse and poison technique formulas erupted on the battlefield! Judging by the vicious techniques that don’t distinguish friend from foe, it must be a necromancer, and a very evil kind at that!”

“Large-scale troop movements observed from the Tower of Protection side!”

“Update the map immediately.”

At Teur’s quiet yet strict order, subordinates quickly began moving pieces on the map here and there.

The result was clear.

“…They’re precisely targeting 4th rank mages—no, just ‘Rognirs’.”

While one could think they were simply aiming for large and powerful strongholds since the units led by Bruha, Herunal, and others were close to elite among various units, the affected units included much weaker units, or even units that weren’t staying at specific strongholds but were moving.

There was only one commonality. The units were led by Rognir bloodline members.

Moreover, among units led by 4th rank mages, those commanded by people who rose to 4th rank as spouses of Rognirs rather than Rognirs themselves weren’t damaged, making the intention too obvious.

“Are you saying our military information has been leaked?”

“No, if that were the case, they wouldn’t be moving alone, but other raiding units would be attacking together for a more effective invasion. They must have some detection means.”

Teur thought it was quite a threatening attack.

If the enemy was only the Tin Knight’s party, it wouldn’t be too difficult to subjugate them.

If they gathered the forces scattered here and there to form an encirclement, no matter how skilled the enemies were at flying and crawling, it would be advantageous for this side to drag it into a war of attrition.

But now, the Tower of Protection was behind the Tin Knight’s party.

The Tower of Protection was showing threatening movements at each front, as if they might invade at any time, and this was likely not just a bluff.

If they pulled troops from strategic points to deploy elsewhere, the others would actually launch an offensive and push in mercilessly.

Teur fell into deep thought.

The gray old man and Witch of the North who returned to the tower were currently in seclusion saying they had preparations to make, and full authority on how to move troops during this time was in Teur’s hands.

He had intended to focus on maintaining the status quo until the old man returned, thinking the standoff would continue for a while, but…

“…Only fools stick to existing strategies when the situation has changed.”

Teur began moving the pieces symbolizing the Tower of Control’s forces on the map here and there.

Pulling in forces from the border with the Tower of Annihilation, and allowing the forces originally there to move freely to drive out the enemies.

The complexions of the subordinates who saw this deployment changed colorfully.

“Lord Teur. If you do this, the Tower of Annihilation side will be left defenseless.”

“If they happen to turn their blades towards us, things could spiral out of control!”

“Preparing for contingencies is important. But unlike Annihilation, who ‘might betray us’, these are an immediate threat before our eyes. If left unchecked, we don’t know how far the damage will spread, so we need to catch them early.”

“But even so, it’s just one ship, isn’t it?”

The Tin Knight party’s surprise attacks were sudden, but conversely, this proved that their scale wasn’t very large.

If large-scale forces had moved and crossed into Control’s territory, there was no way they wouldn’t have been observed in advance.

The enemy’s scale was a small number that could avoid detection networks, perhaps really just the personnel of one ship.

Moving large-scale forces to catch just that many people seemed like the height of inefficiency no matter how you looked at it.

“No, this much damage occurred in just a few hours. Rather than clumsily probing and letting the damage grow, it’s better to strike them down at once. And prepare transmission magic. Make sure the security is thorough to avoid eavesdropping.”

“Where should we contact?”

Teur calmly stated, “All Rognirs on the battlefield.”

***

《Forward! Right ahead! The blood of the dirty old man is there!》

《Forward! Right ahead! The blood of the dirty old man is there!》

《Forward! Right ahead—》

Click clack.

The skulls noisily chattering along with bone sounds.

Looking at the necromancy compasses that should point to different targets all pointing to one place, Dorothea said, “These things, it looks like they’re gathered in one place? Seems they’ve noticed we’ve been selectively taking out tower head bloodlines.”

“That’s quite fast. Unlike us, who are unencumbered, they must have many constraints.”

The larger an army’s size, the slower its movements became.

Even just a holiday traffic jam was unspeakably terrible, let alone an army where the majority were foot soldiers and supply routes needed to be secured.

In contrast, what about Dorothea’s party?

The number of people who needed to eat and sleep was just four, including Dorothea, Adelaide, Gale, and Trot.

Moreover, thanks to Dorothea’s Gloves of Haider, they didn’t need to resupply materials anywhere, their flying ship was capable of high-speed movement that treated ordinary horses as nothing, and they could rest as much as needed during movement, even if efficiency dropped a bit.

Furthermore, the Tin Knight was repeating a crazy schedule of move-fight-move-fight-move-fight that would make one’s tongue hurt and give a headache just saying it, as if even that “minimal rest” was unnecessary.

Any ordinary army would have been defeated in detail without even knowing what hit them, but the fact that they had prepared countermeasures even if a few steps behind showed the enemies’ competence.

It also showed what they had done to achieve this.

Sophia said, “They must have quickly gathered only high-ranking mages who can handle flight magic or move while riding familiars, leaving behind those with slow movements. Dorothea, is the place where the bloodline members gathered the tower?”

“No, it’s half and half. Half are gathered at the tower, and the other half are in the castle ahead.”

At Dorothea’s words, the group looked at the castle before them.

Cap’n Bill whistled.

“Whew—nice. Looks like there be a ton to plunder.”

It was as he said.

Although the party had raided several places and plundered a few castles so far, the atmosphere of the castle before them was quite different from the ones they had attacked until now.

First, the scale was enormously large, and the castle wasn’t a single structure but divided into several parts like outer walls, inner castle, annexes, and there was even an urban area inside the outer walls.

Overwhelming grandeur and splendor that overwhelmed viewers.

While it wasn’t particularly impregnable in a geographical sense as it was on open plains except for having a river on one side, as if to compensate for that, ominous mana poured out from the castle walls and inside.

“Balascamb. When the Magic State Aeolia was still a kingdom, this was their capital. As it’s a place with deep symbolism for the Rognir family, its magic defenses are excellent. It probably wouldn’t be inferior even compared to the tower?”

Saying it would be difficult to break through in a frontal assault, Gale shook her head.

For Gale, who seemed bold to the point of losing her mind, to say such things, it must truly mean it was a difficult place to attack.

“Tsk, then picking off the leadership with sniping ends here.”

Dorothea clicked her tongue with a somewhat displeased look, and Sophia spoke as if to soothe her, “With such rapid movement, the enemies must have pushed themselves quite hard too. They probably left behind most of the troops who walk normally and only had high-ranking mages capable of high-speed movement join here. The enemy’s battle lines must be quite disrupted too, so it’s better to withdraw for now and observe the situation. There’s also a risk of encirclement.”

Sophia’s words weren’t wrong.

If 4th rank mages were holed up here, it would certainly be difficult to target them, but conversely, it also meant they couldn’t be active on the frontlines.

Just by making the enemy forcibly move troops like this and forcing tactical choices, their military achievements were sufficient.

No, considering what they had ground down all the enemy they picked off so far, it was more than sufficient, even overflowing.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says we shouldn’t withdraw now!]

However, the Tin Knight’s thoughts were different.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that the witch’s power will have grown much larger by the next time we meet, so we need to whittle down the enemy’s forces until Control and Protection are about evenly matched before then!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ argues that we only have a chance of winning if the stage is set where we can focus solely on dealing with the witch!]

It was rare for the Tin Knight to evaluate an enemy so highly, so the party members showed somewhat surprised expressions.

Dorothea asked, “Then what should we do? Are you saying you’ll charge into that castle alone and grind them down again this time?”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ confesses that while that would be fun in its own way, there would probably be many flaws in the mana supply process!]

His tone suggested he could do it alone if there were no gaps during mana supply.

“Then?”

The Tin Knight pointed his finger at Dorothea.

More precisely, at her right hand.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says it’s a romantic notion for allies to reuse the ultimate skill that a strong enemy used!]

***

https://ko-fi.com/genesisforsaken