| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 3605 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 2103 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
“No… No!!!”
Watching Cloud’s neck fly off, someone screamed out. Considering the high pitch of the scream, it seemed to belong to a female user. Being completely panicked, she was about to dash to where Cloud was, but the guild members that were close to her were barely able to stop her from doing so.
“Wine?”
It was surprising, but then I thought it was actually to be expected. She was the guild leader, while Cloud was the vice-guild leader. Considering their relationship, it meant that they pretty much saw each other almost every day while playing the game, and as long as they have even just the slightest bit of feelings towards each other, it was easy to develop into a feeling of love.
“I shall dedicate this victory to our goddess.”
Showing proper showmanship to the crowd, Knuckle spoke confidently.
Wooooo!!!
Thanks to that, the crowd who had been holding their breath for a moment became energetic again. On the other hand, the Chaos guild’s base members who looked to be hopeful about this battle were now completely downcast.
“Great work.”
I praised them for their achievement.
[You’ve handled your job magnificently. I will no longer consider the accessories that I gave you as loaned equipment.][Does that mean…!]
[It means I am providing you with them as payment for joining the guild. However, I shall take them back once you withdraw from it.]
[Pfthaha! Please don’t worry. I pledge my complete loyalty to you as long as I keep playing Blue Sky. Oh and there was a quest related to the expansion of the church when I declared the name of the group, is it fine if I were to gather more members?]
I rejoiced in my mind after hearing what Knuckle said. He was actually offering to do what I was thinking of asking him to do. The worry I felt about how to word my persuasion disappeared.
[Though it’s not in my best interest, I suppose there’s no helping it if it’s a quest.][You truly are generous. Thank you very much.]
Come on, I should be the one thankful to him. Is what I thought as I danced with joy in my mind.
As one of my problems disappeared, the message informing me that the siege weapons had arrived had finally come. Now, the only thing left was to conquer Edinburgh.
“We’ll have the siege weapons on the front lines, and go into preparation for siege warfare.”
A wave of cheer burst out before calming down, and soon the process of changing formation began. A siege tower was placed in the front line for each platoon, and various catapult weapons were placed behind the formation.
“Ellie, don’t order them to charge in right from the beginning, I’ve set up the mage corps and healer corps separately so make sure to move them together.”
Afraid that I will just jump into the battle head-on like last time, she pulled on my arm and whispered into my ear.
“I’ll do my best not to.”
“Ugh…”
I couldn’t promise her. Since in a battle, you couldn’t predict what was going to happen with absolute certainty.
Katalina looked as if she was annoyed by my reply, but seemed to also understand the reason why. She was simply worried about my safety. But she also seemed to know that it would be difficult to protect that if I were to follow her orders.
“Anyway, I’ll be the commander of the guard platoon that’s exclusive to you, bringing along the mage corps and healer corps with me, so I’m hoping that you’ll try to be in sync with the support corps as much as you can.”
“Alright, but it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of corps though.”
That’s right. I knew that the army was divided into teams, parties and squads, but the word ‘corps’ felt new to me.
“Well, it’s because it’s a new thing that I made up just recently. Just think of them as a group consisting of one full party. But the mage corps is made up of only mages, while the healer corps is made up of only healers.”
For a full party, though it depends on the level that the party leader has, it means that there are at least twenty people in it. The more they are, the bigger the party is and the less they are, the smaller it is, but it certainly sounded a bit overkill for all of them to be supporting just a single person.
“I think you’re bringing a bit too many people to support me.”
“Hey! You think this war is on a thousand army scale or something? We’re at the scale of tens of thousands. This amount of support and guard being specifically for you is completely normal.”
But Katalina didn’t honestly mean that. Thinking that if I were to question her further, I would end up making her angry, I simply nodded my head and agreed.
It was because I also didn’t want to overlook the fact that there is a clear difference in a battle consisting of tens of thousands of soldiers.
“And the corps consists of the Camelot alliance’s Volcano guild members and just the top 10% of the guild members, so make sure to treat them well.”
Though she nonchalantly said top 10%, healers at the top 10% of the margins were actually bishop class healers who can deal serious damage as well, and on top of that, there were twenty of them. Considering that experienced high level raid dungeon parties have just one or two bishop class healers, you could tell that it’s quite a huge number.
On top of that, healers are considered the flower of the party, the nobles that we have to treasure. Damage dealers who don’t have high class background or skills are usually the ones that flatter the healers for their help.
And yet those amazing, precious people are serving me exclusively and healing only me?
“Of course I’ll protect them well.”
Originally, in the case of mages or healers, there was a higher percentage of female users who used that class than men. When parties are picking out users to let them join, they find themselves asking for female users more since they’re much more likely to be support-type classes than men who pick damage-dealing classes.
In any case, having a party filled with only men that feels dreary the whole time is worse than having a party that’s more friendly and lively with one or two female users joining it, making the party more generous and forgiving in general to each other.
In the past, I’ve actually had the experience of how the party members deal with them when healers make exactly the same mistake in different parties.
It’s an incident in which the healer lost their timing in healing the party member, letting them die due to small negligence, and when it’s a female user who made the mistake they would end the incident with a simple apology while if it was a male user they would end up fighting and even kick them out of the party as a whole. Because of that incident, there was a time in which male healer users would whine and cry about the reverse discrimination they were having in the parties on the Blue Sky community websites.
Because of one reason or another I believed with near certainty that the mage corps and the healer corps would be made up mostly of female users.
There’s a saying that the more you wait, the bigger your desire for the goal becomes. I quickly announced the order of which to begin the siege warfare.
“Frontlines, advance!”
With the order being issued, each of the commanders for the platoons stepped forward and began to lead their platoons into battle.
“Protect the siege tower and have the tankers on the front!”
“Keep the formation, and don’t be afraid of the incoming attack, respond accordingly!”
“Mages, make it your number one priority to protect the siege towers!”
Like a tidal wave rushing into the beach, the Camelot alliance advanced towards the enemy castle. Charging directly into the fierce wall from the first moment would greatly damage the fatigue level of the soldiers, so it was more efficient to simply advance with a faster stride instead.
“Ellie, the front lines will soon be within the shooting range of the enemies.”
Katalina advised me from my side. I nodded my head and responded as I saw that as well. I then used my ‘Lion’s Roar’ to once again give a command.
“All soldiers, advance forward in a quick march!”
As it was quite a loud order, I was sure that even the frontlines would have heard my order well enough.
“Advance in a quick march!”
“Advance, advance!”
The troop commanders shouted out orders repeatedly, to which the platoon leaders and the party leaders all listened and carried forth the commands.
Then the entirety of the army began their quick march, charging towards the castle walls.
“Stop them!”
This time the order came from the enemy’s side.
Twing, twang!
Like the sounds of instrument strings being plucked, a giant wave of bowstrings being released at the same time echoed out through the battlefield. And the sky began to be filled completely with black rain.
There certainly was a different sense of scale when the number of troops was tens of thousands.
“Tankers, raise your shields!”
Preparing for the arrows that were about the fall, the troop commanders gritted their teeth. Even before the command was shouted, the majority of them had already lifted up their shield to protect their own lives.
Whoosh, whoosh!
Soon, the black rain that had blotted out the sky drew a perfect arc in the air and flew towards us.
“Aagh!”
“Ugh!”
Though we did prepare for it, as the shields weren’t able to completely protect everything, injuries and casualties began to appear in places.
“Don’t stop, advance!”
As the frontlines flinched and stopped moving for a moment due to the damage, the commanders in the front shouted out. Then they began to move to the front lines themselves, encouraging their soldiers to move forward.
Only after the troops penetrated through the enemy’s shooting range would they be able to receive much fewer waves of arrow attacks from the enemy, so it was an obvious action to take for both offense and defense.
Boom!
The pillar of flame that burst out from one corner of the formation soon started to appear here and there among the allies. We had now reached the range of their magic.
It was clear that the defensive side of a siege war can show off their advantage in being able to dish out huge damage against us before we can reach them due to the difference in height.
Though I desperately wanted to join the frontlines myself to reduce the damage that the allies were taking, Katalina was holding my hand, shaking her head to tell me not to go.
“We’ve arrived at the range to attack them. Retaliate!”
Finally, the attacking side arrived at the location where their attacks could reach the enemies on top of the castle walls, and a fierce battle broke out between the frontlines of either side. The one sided damage we were receiving had now turned into a fierce war of attrition between both sides.
A number of siege towers had been destroyed due to the enemy attacks, but the ones that survived safely laid their bridge on the outer wall of the enemy castle.
The bascule bridge was hung on the enemy walls, and through the siege towers the allies started to advance to the top of the walls.
“Retaliate, don’t let them come up to the top of the walls!”
“Kill all the enemies on the top of the walls!”
Endless shouts of encouragement from both sides of commanders kept ringing out. There was no war movie or show that could depict a more realistic battle than this right now.
I had a bitter smile on my face. I didn’t like that I was just standing here remaining as a spectator like I was just a third party in this battle.
“Okay, let’s go!”
“Phew, alright.”
It seemed like Katalina had realized that I had already made up my mind, as she decided not to stop me anymore. Then I started to dash past the second division waiting on standby to join the 1st division in the frontlines together with my supporting teams.
