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Though I inwardly wanted to hurry, I didn’t advance towards the enemy at top speed. All members of my personal guards are made up of classes with slowed-down movement speed in general, so it was obvious that they wouldn’t be able to catch up to me if I were to move at top speed.

There was magic called haste which would enhance their movement speed, but it was definitely not on par with me using ‘Wind Walk’ as a melee class character.

As the battle raged on, I headed towards the area where the enemies were clashing against our forces the hardest. The criteria for judging that was very easy. It was where the enemies were most clustered, with the highest number of high-level enemies, and where our allies were suffering the most damage.

“Aargh…!”

I saw an ally fall onto the ground as I arrived in the area. It seemed like the sword wound he had in the thigh area was fatal, as he held onto one of his legs and moaned in pain.

A number of healers from my support team cast healing magic on him, which made him confused and surprised from the sudden healing he received but he stood up right away to aim his spear towards the enemy that had landed the attack on him.

And every time I saw an ally suffering the similar fate of falling due to severe damage, my healers would heal them every time and while they did that, I was able to swing my Excalibur against the enemies without any worry.

My first attack against them was powerful, blowing massive damage on the enemy lines. After the whirlwind of sword subsided, the majority of the enemies fell, unable to withstand the damage they suffered, and the ones that barely survived only had very little HP left, so the allied members gleefully finished them off after me.

I was a little sad to relinquish my kill points to them, but there were plenty of enemies to kill anyways.

“Dammit, it’s Artoria!”
“Ooh, my lord!”

Due to my powerful attack just then, both sides of the battlefield yelled out with fear and joy respectively since they noticed I had arrived.

Perhaps due to my fame spreading this whole time, there were fewer enemies that were willing to challenge me. Since that meant I needed to personally get close to the majority of the enemies in order to strike them down, I felt slightly annoyed by that. On the other hand, thanks to that fact, I was distracting the enemy forces and easily taking them down as they advanced forward.

“It seems like now you’re influencing the whole battle just from your presence alone.”

Using her inferno and hellfire spell from time to time, Katalina was probably just as noticeable as me in influencing the battlefield, so she really shouldn’t be saying that.

Each of us busied ourselves with breaking up the enemy formations, giving the towers that were being hit most heavily to have more breathing space.

“Seems like the resistance in the entrance area is quite powerful.”

Yet another gigantic tower filled with enemy forces was entrenched deeply, attacking our allies from within. It was one of the two towers that protected the main doors to the castle, with the other tower already taken over by our allies and it was only this tower that was stopping the advancement of our forces.

It seemed like the soldiers protecting the gate were quite skilled as well, since they were defending the narrow entrance with great proficiency. Our allied forces had already suffered quite a number of casualties, making them reluctant to try and penetrate through their defense, slowing down our advancement.

“I shall penetrate through their defenses, so can you all stand aside?”
“Who in the world is trying to use brute force… huh? Oh, my lord. Please forgive my rudeness.”

A user who looked annoyed at my foolish-sounding statement turned around to see who I was and when he recognized me, he apologized immediately with a surprised expression on his face.

“It’s fine.”

Honestly, I didn’t feel that good about it, but he didn’t mean any malice and I couldn’t let myself look petty in front of everyone, so to show my generous side, I spoke as if it wasn’t a problem.

“My lord!”
“Whoa, Miss Artoria herself is going to do it!”
“She really is the goddess.”

There were sounds of rejoicing coming from here and there, as they chanted my ID name. I still wasn’t quite used to this kind of situation so I responded with a simple hand wave and hurriedly entered the entrance area.

“Ugh, you’re so bullheaded!”

I heard Katalina shouting at me from behind, but I didn’t feel that what I was doing was particularly dangerous.

“Kill her!”

As soon as I entered the area, numerous enemy forces who were waiting on all sides within the tower all charged their weapons directly towards me.

However, I had already somewhat expected their attack, and I bent my back all the way like I was doing a limbo dance, dodging all of their attacks.

Thankfully, the majority of their attacks were aimed at the vital areas on the upper half of my body so there weren’t that many attacks aimed at the lower half. But there were still some attacks down there nevertheless, so I grabbed the spear trying to stab me and lifted my leg in a stance to dodge the sword.

I know you may be thinking ‘how was she able to move her body so flexibly when she hasn’t even learned how to do gymnastics?’, but thanks to my high dexterity stat my body felt as light as a feather. It helped me achieve flexibility of which I could only imagine before.

“How can she move in such a way…”

One of the enemy soldiers spoke in astonishment, but before he could even feel more astonished I slashed my Excalibur towards him.

“Argh!”

He blocked just in time but he went into a stunned state from the powerful impact he felt from the shield. I didn’t let that chance go by as I drove my Excalibur right into his abdomen to finish him off. Then I dodged with ease as all the enemy soldiers once again crowded around and swung their weapons at me at the same time, and swung my Excalibur 180 degrees around to cut them all down.

“Aaagh!”
“Ugh!”

Each of them gave their death cries as they fell, as the enemy soldiers that were crowding in that small area all died with a single strike. The few soldiers that survived screamed in fear as they climbed the tower stairs and headed up.

“The entrance is clear! There should be some remnants of enemy forces on the top floor.”

Thinking I shouldn’t bother going all the way up to the top of the tower, I spoke to my allies as I just left the tower right away. One of the commanders nodded in appreciation of my work and gathered a number of elites to command them to advance to the top of the tower and finish off the enemies in there.

“Advance!”
“Yes sir!”

They all replied with determination and followed the commander inside. Now the tower would soon fall into our hands. Then I looked around to study the situation. In the meantime, while I was fighting the enemies within the tower, Katalina was blasting large-scale destructive magic wherever large groups of enemies were, and the mage corps assisted in her attacks.

The healer corps continually assisted allies everywhere, and helped the ally forces push their advantageous position even further.

Whenever the soldiers were gaining an advantage over the enemies in one particular area, they would use the chance to help the allies in other areas that were confronting the enemies and since the enemies would be caught in a pincer movement, the enemy defenses started to break down.

“Though the battle is on a much more epic scale, it’s really not that different from the usual siege battles I’ve had so far.”

That was my honest thought about this battle so far. Now, the enemy forces were retreating back to the inner castle building. But since they were retreating after their line had broken up, they weren’t able to retreat in an orderly fashion.

“Chase after the enemies that are retreating. Kill them all before they go inside the castle! Don’t let the healers in particular escape alive!”

I heard the commander yelling out loudly from a distance as the battles continued. Some of the healers that heard him frowned a bit but realized it was the obvious thing to do so they were not offended by it.

The more healers that survived and retreated back into the castle, the more casualties the allies will have to suffer in order to completely conquer the hallways of the inner castle. Knowing that to be the case, they understood what needed to be done even though they didn’t particularly like it.

The enemy forces that were hurriedly retreating had practically abandoned the majority of the mages and healers that were supporting them from behind. If the number of soldiers involved on both sides was smaller, the enemy commander would have been able to command their forces better to keep the order of the formation even if they did get defeated by our forces, but since each platoon had more than a thousand soldiers each, it was difficult to command the troops efficiently.

In the first place, I had already cut down four of their commanders that were commanding the platoons. It was inevitable since the most efficient method to push back our allied forces was to personally command the forces, leading me to take them out first to get rid of our disadvantage. And because of that, the enemy forces who lost their commander were powerless and slow to retreat.

Even though the enemies should have aimed for commanders of our side to create chaos as I did, the top brass, meaning the guild leader and the vice-guild leader weren’t in the right state to lead the troops properly, which led to the chaos and confusion of the enemy troops.

As a result, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the death of Cloud in the early stages of this battle had ultimately led to us being able to easily secure a victory. During the whole battle, Katalina and I were running around battling the enemy forces while I couldn’t see even a hair of the enemy guild leader.

“Argh!”
“Save me…”
“Please, wait for me!”

It really was a ghastly sight. Enemy forces running away as others chase after them. I think the saying is that your wartime accomplishments are the clearest when the enemy forces are retreating and you are chasing after them. Looking around at the current situation, I could tell that it was true.

The scenery of the event in Exter city came to mind. The same event took place there as the one occurring now. Of course, the forces that were engaged in battle were completely different but this moment was exactly the same. Seeing the enemy soldiers abandoning their allies just so they could save their own lives… The majority of the healers that were left behind had already given up on retreating back to the castle and instead focused on creating a magic shield around themselves. The same for the mages as well.

I wonder if the enemy forces really had anyone that was like me? I look around carefully to see if I can spot one. Though there were some groups that were retreating back to the castle together with their healers since they had personal relationships with them, there weren’t any that attempted to go back just to save the healers that were left behind and surrounded by their enemies.

Though it did make me feel a little disappointed, it was probably the obvious thing to do. For someone who puts in as much effort to raise their character as I did, they would never jump back into danger just to earn a tiny bit of fame if their other option was to risk everything they had earned.

That means what I did back then didn’t make any sense.

“All soldiers, stop pursuing the enemies!”

As enemies went inside of the inner castle and the pursuing allied forces reached right in front of the entrances, I gave the order to stop pursuing the enemies.

“All troops, stop! Any further pursuit of enemy soldiers is forbidden!”
“Everyone, return to formation and focus on the extermination of enemy forces that have been isolated.”

My order was carried out by the troop commanders and they added detailed orders on top of that. The follow-up measures were an obvious step to take, but that was not my intention.

“Please do not attack the isolated enemies for a moment.”

Since they had put up a shield, we were in a situation where we needed their shield timer to run out before we could attack anyways, so the allied forces followed my order without any problem.

“I speak to you, enemy soldiers who have been isolated. You have all been abandoned by your guild already. We’ve suggested you all join our alliances, but you’ve all given up and now you find yourselves in this situation. Will you all simply choose to die here like this?”
“I do not want to die.”
“Me too!”

Of course, none of them would want to die. As one of the users yelled out amidst the silence, other users joined here and there all not wanting to die as well.

“So are you threatening us to join the Camelot alliance in return for letting us live?”

One of the healer users asked me in return. Suddenly, all the healers who were yelling out saying they didn’t want to die all stopped and became quiet.

It indicated that they wished to hear my reply and know what my intentions were.

“No. I simply do not wish to step on all of your futures. The reason this war occurred in the first place was because of the incident back in Exter city after all.”

It seemed like they didn’t expect my answer to be like that as the healers all whispered to themselves for a moment, but I soon continued speaking again.

“I’m sure some of you know this already, but I have participated in the battle as a mercenary. A mercenary working for the Chaos guild. I did my best to fight in the war. Of course, the reason I was fighting wasn’t really for the benefit of the Chaos guild but rather my own motivation to make sure the profit stemming from my performance as a mercenary would be as best as it could be, but regardless I still fought for the Chaos guild. But as you all know, the battle turned out to go completely differently than expected and we couldn’t do anything but retreat. And while that was happening, there were isolated mages and healers, just like you all are right now. I’ve seen them all die pitifully, abandoned by their allies. So how could I kill you all when I’ve borne witness to that?”
“Does that mean… Miss Artoria, you just abandoned the mercenary healers like us?”

A question came from one of the users.

“No! And I’m sure of this, at that time Miss Artoria was the only one who jumped back into the heat of battle, risking everything just to save the lives of the healers.”

But hearing that question, a healer belonging to the Chaos guild replied quickly. As they answered, everyone’s attention turned towards the healer that was answering. Though the healer must have felt burdened from seeing everyone turn towards them, they didn’t pay any attention to it and continued speaking.

“One of the healers that participated in that particular battle back then was my little brother. I remember how he described the battle to me. I also heard that Miss Artoria was with an 8th circle mage. I’ve seen the video footage and was certain that the user who went back for them was Miss Artoria. Since even now, next to Miss Artoria is Miss Merlin who I presume to be the 8th circle mage.”
“Whoaa…”

I couldn’t tell from their voices if they were impressed or not. However, it seems like this situation will go well for me.

“Therefore I believe that what Miss Artoria is saying right now is not a threat. I simply think that it’s a suggestion that would lead us to the path of survival. If Miss Artoria is willing to take me in, I will withdraw myself from the Chaos guild right now and join the Camelot alliance instead.”

Whooaaa!!

As the healer finished talking, a roar of cheer came from the Camelot guild members. When a high-level healer says they want to join the guild, it is not just limited to adding one more number to the rest of the guild members. Considering that the number 1 priority for all large guilds is to hire high-ranking users or healers and constantly fight each other for it, it was no different than seeing Camelot as just having earned a high-ranking user to the guild.

It was wonderful news to me.

“Of course, if you wish to join our guild yourself, I will not decline your request, but for the users here that do not wish to join our alliance due to various reasons, I will give you all a chance to safely log out.”

That’s right. It wouldn’t matter to healers who had already made up their mind, but if they have friends or family members within the Chaos guild, they wouldn’t be able to so easily quit and join our alliance instead. I didn’t want to emphasize the fact that I don’t think it would be any different even if I did.

And in the first place, I was already set on not killing them so that’s why I was able to say that. So even if they were to go back to the Chaos guild after this battle is over, I wouldn’t have any kind of resentment towards them. Blue Sky was just a game after all.

I couldn’t concern myself with their livelihood or whether or not it was beneficial for us if they joined our guild, nor have any responsibility for it. I felt that even if just a small number of them transfer over to our guild or quit the Chaos guild altogether, it would still be a great result for me in the end.

“Do you promise?”
“I swear on my name.”

And that was enough. Soon, all of the healers of the Chaos guild who were isolated logged out of the game. There were a good number of whispers from them who promised to join the Camelot alliance afterward as well. Thinking that we’ll only know for sure once they actually do sign up for our guild, I didn’t answer their messages. Being too lazy to reply to every one of them was one of the reasons, but there were just too many to logically reply in time.

Seeing as how I thought about completely shutting off my whisper functionality again from the number of whispers I received, it was proof enough that I was receiving too much.

With the final Chaos guild healer logging out, the situation was now over. The Chaos guild had now lost a large number of their important healers.