Chapter 56

Chapter 56: 56

“…….”\n

Of course, Riff had no way of knowing where the people before him had come from. There were a few things that he did know, though. The fact that it would be impossible to shake off a hundred pursuers. The fact that his armor was weighing him down. The fact that he had used up a lot of stamina because he had been fighting until now. In the end, this meant that his chances of dying were incredibly high.

‘What should I do? What should I do?’

Riff lowered his right arm and the tip of his spear fell to the ground. The muscle pains which he didn’t know he had because of the thrill of the battle soon emerged. His entire body was groaning out of exhaustion.

“Leader! What’s happening!?”

“Who are those bastards over there!?”

The other adventurers ran up to Riff’s side. They were the ones who hurriedly broke away from the others because of Riff’s order. Some of them kept swearing at Riff for being irresponsible and ruining the formation.

Riff looked around blankly.

“…….”

Eyes filled with anxiety and restlessness, the infantry line that was quickly falling apart once a portion of the adventurers broke away, and the goblins that jumped into those openings.

Hundreds of humans were gradually making their way through the blood and to them. The encirclement which Riff had wanted to avoid the most was completed. Goblins at their rear, the villagers on both their sides, and the hundred that came from who knows where.

“……A square.”

He muttered weakly.

“Form a square…….”

“Form a square!”

One of the senior adventurers made out what the leader said and shouted. The order immediately spread throughout the group. The remaining 30 people of adventurers and remnant civilian militia created a square formation with Riff at the center. There were a couple more civilian militia members that couldn’t handle the unrelenting goblin attacks and left their positions to join Riff.

“Move move!

“Fuck, what the hell is happening!?”

However, only 5 additional people managed to join the square formation. The rest collapsed and died after their comrades abandoned them and their line crumbled apart. Naturally, Riff and the others could hear them swear at Riff as they died.

“Riff, you son of a biiitch!”

“You, fucking, guuuah! Guaaaack!”

In the end, the remaining half of the group couldn’t manage to run away or fix their formation as they fell to the earth powerlessly. The roach-like goblins latched on to the corpses. They tore their flesh and splattered blood everywhere. Someone gulped as they watched that sight. They had formed a defensive line, but their current morale was laughable.\n

“Leader, what the hell is going on……!?”

“Why aren’t those fucking villagers attacking!? How long do they intend to keep watching!? Leader! Are we going to keep taking it like this!? We’ll get wiped out at this rate!”

“Brother!”

Riff didn’t respond to them.

The mage was standing in the center of the defensive formation. Since the mage was constantly in the back when the group first charged the goblins and during their fight with them, she was able to retreat back to the new group with ease. This woman, who always seemed like her mind was in a cornfield, must have also realized the severity of the situation as she was looking around with a sharp gaze.

‘This pushover is our last hope.’

Riff gnashed his teeth. He had conserved the mage because he wanted her to take care of the golems, but thanks to this decision, the mage wasn’t tired at all. Her capabilities are unknown, but she should be able to use powerful spells without reserve.

He’ll use her magic as a ‘fang’ and aim it towards the weakest part of the encirclement. And while the enemies are bewildered by the sudden magic, he’ll use that opportunity to run through the opening.

‘Shit, is this going to work?’

There was no time to spare. The goblins had almost reached them. Their defensive formation can block off the immediate threat, but 35 people can’t last for long. He had to do it whether this plan worked or not.

Riff asked the mage a question.

“Oi, can you prepare your biggest and strongest spell?”

“Mmm. I have something, but it’ll probably be hard to get out of this situation even if I use it.”

The mage answered casually as if this wasn’t her problem.

“I’m not trying to boast, but I specialize in one to one combat, so I don’t know any large area of effect spells. Well, just think of it like this, you have to be a Five Circle to be able to use large area of effect spells.”

“Fuck, stop prattling and just prepare to cast it.”

“I already did. I finished reciting the spell around the time you stopped running like a dog with its tail between its legs.”

Riff looked at the woman in surprise.

“This is the first good news I’ve heard since this all started.”

“Haah. It’s common sense to think a step or two ahead, Mr. Ignorant Adventurer. Mages are a bit smarter than people like you. And I’m also a part of that smart side. In conclusion, I’m much smarter than you. This is important, so make sure to underline it.”

“Damn it.”

Was this mage bitch always this talkative? Riff wondered as he furrowed his brows. Regardless, this wasn’t the time to think about that. \nHe darted his eyes around and searched for the weakest part of the encirclement where a group of roughly 30 people could squeeze through. The mage kept talking to herself.

“Despite my greatness, I think I’m slightly below the gentleman that’s leading these monsters. He’s able to exploit humans to their most basic of roots. He purposely made two villages not join us so that all suspicion would go on them. He made us believe that they didn’t join us because they’re the traitors.”

She seemed excited as if she finally encountered something interesting for the first time in her boring life. Her eyes sparkled underneath her long lashes.

“Even though it should be the opposite. Traitors would try to participate even more actively and aim to break things apart from the inside. If they made all 4 villages join, then it might have been suspicious. But he cleverly made 2 villages join and 2 villages stay……Hm. It’s psychological, really psychological.”

“Shut up, you’re getting on my nerves!”

“You should shut up. Your breath smells. Your breath smells so bad that I get confused whether you’re human or a pile of waste. More importantly, why isn’t he using his golems? That’s what I’m curious about. Human infantrymen are definitely strong, but using golems to deal with them should be enough. Hmm.”

Riff gave up on making the female mage shut up.

He couldn’t find a weak point in the encirclement. No matter which side it was, their numbers far surpassed theirs. There were approximately 200 humans……and 300 goblins.

Adventurers kept dying one by one. One of their members got his head crushed after it got hit by a stone tossed by a goblin slinger.

“Leader! We can’t hold on any longer!”

“B-Brother!”

The other members seemed to finally realize that the villagers that were coming in from the sides weren’t allies. There’s no way that allies would look so bloodthirsty. However, no one mentioned this fact out loud. It felt like everything would come to an end the moment someone said it.

In the end, Riff decided to take the gamble as he pointed at a direction.

“Fellas! Run that way as soon as the spell goes off! Don’t stop! Leave the stragglers and run! Do you understand!?”

“Yes, Leader!”

“Fire!”

Riff shouted at the woman. The woman was already reciting her spell before he could even finish speaking. Dark rays of light emanated from the bottom of her staff as soon as she struck the floor with it. A small magic circle spread across the ground before it widened to the point of covering the entire group.

“Cleanse curses with curses.”

The woman only had to say one line for her spell to activate. 12 pillars of fire appeared out of nowhere. Once she raised her staff and pointed it towards a direction, balls of fire flew towards the direction like a boulder launched by a catapult. The goblins and humans that were in its line of fire couldn’t even react.

“Huh?”

Balls of flames that were as large as a human body swallowed them whole while they were startled. The stream of fire accelerated. 30 goblins and 10 humans were set ablaze. In an instant, a single section of the encirclement was thinned out.

\n“You have captured a village with 4 layers of fences, slaughtered almost 300 humans, and massacred the entirety of the infantry unit excluding 2 people. If this is not a great victory, then I do not know what is!”

“…….”

The monsters and humans on the plains cheered. It was a cheer of victory. The earth was dyed as red as the evening sky and the ones standing on top of it weren’t the enemies but us. Furthermore, I didn’t lose even a single golem.

“Laura, I am proud to have you as a subordinate.”

I personally pulled her up.

I was serious.

Who would believe that a 16-year-old girl could manage to accomplish something this amazing? Through this battle, she proved that she really is Laura De Farnese and had obtained my full trust.

Laura continued to keep her head down even after I pulled her up. It was then I noticed that her slender shoulders were slightly, very slightly trembling. That’s right. Even if she was fated to become the Iron Chancellor 10 years in the future, not only is she currently an esteemed daughter who had fallen into ruin, but she was treated as a sex slave not so long ago and she had never led an army before in her entire life.

She must have felt incredibly pressured.

She must have endured it all in order to meet my expectations.

She must have buried it in a corner of her heart.

Now that everything was over, the stress she had garnered all this time must have washed over her as soon as she relaxed. Did she kneel because she thought that she didn’t meet my expectations after letting 2 people get away?

I stroked her blonde hair.

You did well, Laura. You did really well.

While holding these thoughts, I stroked her head as softly as possible.

“Do your best to not do something that will cause you to kneel before me again.”

Laura raised her head.

“……Yes, My Lord.”

She was smiling. The corners of her eyes were moist.

The invasion of a 5 village alliance and an E-rank adventurer party of 70 adventurers and civilian militia members, ended with our overwhelming victory.

***

TL note: Thanks for reading the chapter. Not much to say this time. I’m still fairly swamped with work. One more chapter before this section is over. I’ll finally be able to go back to working on another Handholding chapter. I can’t tell if this idea of switching back and forth was good. I feel bad that it’s taking this long to finish a volume… I guess I’ll probably go back to my old method after I finish the current volume.

I’ll see you guys in the next release!