I left the remaining stragglers to the fortress soldiers and made my way deep into the forest.
「Alright… Let’s do this. 『Wind Cutter』 and 『Blood Frenzy Magic』!」
I sliced through the trees with wind blades, then used Blood Frenzy to link the fallen trunks together so they wouldn’t collapse.
「Fresh wood is hard to burn, so… 『Extraction』!」
I pulled the moisture out of the surrounding trees.
A sharp, cracking ‘paki-paki’ echoed through the air as the wood dried out instantly.
「Ooh, nice and crispy… Wait, these are pretty hard trees anyway… Oh well, it’ll do.」
Then I deliberately cleared a wide, obvious path, a tempting beast trail to lure them in.
「Perfect. Preparations complete. Now just please take the bait nicely…」
By the time I finished and the sun began to sink, the sound of grass being trampled reached my ears.
(I managed a short nap and my mana’s mostly recovered. If anything goes wrong, I should be able to handle it.)
「So the demon beasts are scouting ahead, and the infantry are following behind, flattening the path…」
A massive wave of foot soldiers marched forward, trampling everything into a firm road.
Behind them came the cavalry-like units.
「In that case, I can ignore the infantry and focus on the cavalry and everything trailing them.」
I jotted notes to myself while deciding exactly where to trigger the trap.
(After the cavalry come chariots… and those are engineers?)
Heavily armored, slow-moving giants carrying mining equipment lumbered along.
No matter how I looked at it, that technology didn’t belong in this world.
「Their tech is more advanced…? Even so, something’s seriously off.」
Hand-cranked drills like that shouldn’t exist in a medieval setting.
If they used something like that, stone-built structures in this world would crumble far too easily.
「If I trigger it about halfway through the cavalry column, I should be able to crush the entire rear guard.」
The rest… they can figure out on their own!
「Alright… Blood Frenzy Magic, release!」
――――Bakibakibakibaki!
「「「「「Gyaaaaaaaah!?」」」」」
「Now the real fun begins… 『O fallen sun, reveal thy power and turn this land into hell—The Joy of Falling Down!』」
A massive fireball hovered overhead.
Droplets of flame rained down, igniting the ground and racing through the dry forest like wildfire.
「Gyau! Gyau gyau!!」
Amid the chaos, one especially ornate chariot stood out.
The figure riding it was shouting frantically.
「Sorry… but there’s no escape. Second Blood Frenzy release!」
「「「「「Gyaaaaaaaahhh!!」」」」」
The second wave hit harder, panic made them even more vulnerable.
「As expected… Without the commander-class units, their chain of command is completely broken. Total mess.」
Now I just need to herd the survivors toward the rear…
「For now… 『Wide-Area Detection』… Huh?」
The remaining enemies were scattering in every direction, fleeing wildly.
「This is going to make total annihilation a pain…」
At this rate, even the regular soldiers should be able to mop them up without much trouble.
「Well… for today, I’ll just put out this fire and rest.」
I let out a long sigh as I watched the roaring flames devour the forest.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
「Thank you very much! Holy Knight-dono!!」
The next morning, I was jolted awake by a sudden, booming voice.
「Ughhh… yeah… morning…」
My body felt leaden, like the soreness of muscle fatigue without the actual pain, just pure, dragging exhaustion.
「So… tired…」
It’s only natural. I went all out with magic yesterday for the first time in ages.
「Are you alright?」
「Yeah… I’m fine. Lately my magic power pool’s been growing like crazy, so I haven’t really had to push it to the limit. When I finally do… this is the backlash.」
「Breakfast is ready. Would you like to come down?」
「Ah… I want to hear yesterday’s report too, so yeah, I’ll go.」
「Understood! I’ll be waiting in the dining hall! Do you need me to guide you?」
「No, it’s fine. It’s on the first floor of the annex, right?」
「Yes! Then I’ll head there ahead of you!!」
With that, the commander bowed briskly and left the room.
「Mmm… Guess I’ll eat breakfast first and figure out the next move after that. Depending on the situation, I could leave the mop-up to the soldiers and head out to build a forward base for retaking the fortress…」
Conveniently, there’s an absurd amount of lumber from all the trees I cut down yesterday.
Building a simple outpost should be easy.
「The issue is wall strength… and fire resistance would be nice too…」
Plaster, maybe?
I remember seeing it used for fireproofing in Japanese castles during elementary school field trips, Himeji Castle was so beautiful back then…
While reminiscing, I finished changing.
My hair’s a mess from sleeping, but I’ll fix it later.
As I stepped out of the room, a young soldier passing by stopped, concern creasing his brow.
「Holy Knight-sama… your face looks awfully pale. Are you really alright?」
「Ah… yeah, I’m okay. Just overdid it with magic power yesterday…」
He nodded slowly, as though everything suddenly made sense.
「So it’s already spreading among the regular troops too, huh?」
「Yes! Everyone’s talking about how the Holy Knight-dono burned down the forest and wiped out thousands of enemies!」
「Ehh… But doesn’t hearing that make people think it’s too crazy to be true?」
At my question, the youth gave a wry, slightly embarrassed smile.
「Well… at first we all doubted our ears. But then we saw so many enemies fleeing in every direction from the woods, and a huge wave of infantry came charging straight at the fortress. After that… yeah, we believed it.」
「Wait… was the fortress okay?」
「Yes! Normally that many would’ve been a real headache, but they seemed terrified, like they were running from something horrifying!」
「Ahaha… It was that bad, huh…」
A dry, helpless laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
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