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With the enemy lines completely burned down, I cut my way through with ease. Since I had already drunk down my potion before the activation of my skill, my health was being immediately refilled.

“Uugh…”

I heard grunts of pain from here and there. It seemed like there were still enemy guild members that hadn’t died yet. But instead of finishing them off, I decided to advance deeper into their formations before the enemies reformed their groups and got into a defensive position.

“Whoaa!!”

I cut down the Chaos guild members one after the other, who were all unable to react due to the shock. The enemy forces that were already chaotic refused to listen to any commands from the higher-ups, and since they couldn’t even group up properly to attack me in an organized manner, it was extremely easy for me to cut down the enemies that had limited actions.

But I knew that I still needed to be wary of enemies that could sneak up on me, so I kept my cautious stance and calmly cut them down one by one. Using a skill in extremely close range wasn’t really practical so instead, all I did was simply slash and stab the enemies.

“Damn it, what are you all doing? Don’t let her have the space to get around!”

No matter how hard the commander tried to get a hold of the situation, I was cutting down anyone who approached me so it was obvious that those who saw this were cowering away from me in fear. But since I was only attacking the enemies right in front of me intentionally, they slowly noticed my pattern of movement and intentionally started to move away from my path.

Though the whole area was nearly filled with enemies, I continued to quickly cut through their dense formation with ease.

“Wha-!? How did she get up here!?”

I swung my sword directly towards the enemy commander who was urging his troops to take me down.

Clang!

But it seemed like he was quite high leveled since he didn’t die from a single strike. However, it seemed like he still received a lot of damage, mostly on his hand, as he couldn’t strike back at me and stumbled for a moment.

I continued my attack in a fluid motion, striking again towards his abdomen. This time he succeeded in blocking it even though he had no time to recover his stance, but that was all he could do. He was so focused on blocking the attack towards his abdomen that he couldn’t stop my kick from landing on his shin.

“Kgh!”

Then I quickly stabbed his exposed neck with my Excalibur. Though it may seem like I was being extremely violent, the enemy commander was completely clad in full plate armor which meant that the only place I could land a critical hit was in his neck area.

“Aahh!! The top commander has fallen!”

Thankfully, the enemy soldiers helpfully informed me that it was the top commander that I had taken down.

“Uggh…”

And because of that, I was able to easily see the remaining will to fight and morale between the enemy soldiers dissipate. There were a number of them who simply logged out of the game right then and there, when the remaining Chaos guild members saw them leave the game all they could do was shake in fear.

Whether they did that or not, I headed towards the military training ground of the inner castle which was originally my main goal. Though sometimes I met with a group of enemy soldiers trying to put up a fight, they had all turned into a nice bundle of experience points for me.

“H… huh?”

My eyes were met with a considerable amount of enemy soldiers who were all sitting on the military training ground trying to recuperate their strength. Many of them were tired from gaining too much fatigue from the first battle on the outer walls. If I didn’t defeat them right here and now, it was clear that the amount of time it would take to penetrate the main defenses on the entrances would double and triple according to how many survived.

“It’s Artoria!”
“Damn it, how did she get all the way in here…”

Soon they started to cower in fear. Whether they feared me or not, I quickly called Katalina in order to complete my objective.

It probably meant that she was ready. Since she didn’t tell me to wait.

“Even if our enemy is Artoria, she’s still alone!”
“Y… yeah! They said we will be victorious if we just kill Artoria!”

The enemies that were hesitant to get close to me started to slowly come towards me thanks to some of them reminding others that I was alone.

They had the right idea, but…

Vrrrm.

Before they could even start their attack, Katalina was completely transferred to my location.

“What’s that?”
“No way, how could she summon a whole user here…!?”

They realized that something that is deemed absolutely impossible logically was happening in front of their eyes. They could never have guessed a close-range damage dealer would be able to summon someone.

On top of that, it seemed like a proper commander wasn’t there to order them or was cowering in fear along with them, since they had all given up on attacking us when we were most vulnerable.

“Hello everyone~”

Katalina, who had completely transferred over, smiled brightly and greeted her enemies.

“H… hello.”
“You idiot, she’s our enemy!”

Then she cast the magic which she had already memorized beforehand.

An 8th circle combination magic began to unfold. A double-cast magic which was impossible to even attempt unless your intelligence stat was over 1,000. Katalina had just reached over that number not long ago, and was therefore able to unlock the double casting feature in which she could cast both summoning magic and mass teleporting magic at the same time.

In my opinion, that kind of skill seemed much more useful than being able to fight barehanded with Pankration skill. Though there was just one limitation in that she could only use double-cast spells twice a day.

Like a certain unit called ‘Arbeiter’ from a certain game in the past casting its summoning skill, a mass teleportation of numerous allied soldiers began to unfold as they flung away all the enemy guild members that were within the spell range.

“Whoa!”

But it seemed like they were simply flung away a small distance, not actually receiving any substantial damage. I became more certain of my presumption once I saw the enemies who were flung far away pick themselves up right away. None of them tried to drink a potion or anything.

“W…wha…”

Seeing a large group of enemies suddenly appearing from a huge magic circle left the Chaos guild members in a mix of shock and awe.

“Strike the enemies in our vicinity.”
“Yes, my lord.”

It seemed like they heard a simple explanation from Katalina already, as our allies all accepted my order without any confusion. Moving together along with me as I charged into the enemies, we all took down the enemies that hurriedly tried to set up their defenses.

Some of the enemies had no fatigue level left, while some had plenty to spend. On top of that, even though they were small in number, each of them was the elites of elites among the opposing army.

The military training ground within the castle of Edinburgh was soon filled with sounds of screams from the enemies.

As the allies kept pouring out from Katalina’s magic circle, we were able to strengthen our advantage and control over the situation.

With most of the enemies that had gathered up in the military training ground having been defeated, I sent half of the summoned troops towards the entrance of the grounds so that we could do a pincer movement against the enemies to make sure none of them escaped.

Since moving in towards the enemies in a pincer formation would make the battle several times easier than just piercing the enemy lines from one direction. One of the troop commanders who received my command nodded his head, and gathered his troops to head towards the entrance.

“Looks like the end of this battle is coming up soon.”
“Yep, we’ve gotten over one of the toughest parts of the battle.”

I heartily agreed after hearing Katalina’s words.

“Yeah…”

She also didn’t disagree with me. Just taking down enemies was our duty in this battle, there were plenty of enemies that were ready to face us in the castle.

Though it had only been a day, we had already stacked up quite a serious amount of fatigue.

“Let us head towards the hallways.”

I felt that we should hurry up and finish this battle soon, so I decided to head towards the hallways without any hesitation.

Everyone marched together for a fair bit, and then not long after we were able to see a group of enemies that were waiting for us inside the hallways.

“I didn’t think you would get all the way here this quickly.”

Wine was standing in the front, greeting us with an unexpectedly calm expression. I also saw Tiara standing next to her wearing the usual clothes I see her in.

“Fufu, hey there.”

She smiled as she greeted me.

“It’s nice to see you.”
“I’ll make sure you’ll see hell today.”

It seemed like Katalina had remembered being done in by them in the past, since I was greeting them like usual but Katalina was burning with fighting spirit, gritting her teeth in rage.

“This battle’s victory belongs to you all. I shall admit my defeat.”
“Are you surrendering?”

I asked Wine if she was surrendering since she admitted her defeat.

“Sigh.. as if. I could never surrender myself to enemies that had cut the head of my fiance.”

I guess she’s talking about Cloud. I did think they had a close relationship but I didn’t know they were engaged as well.

“But to resist against you all to the very end here wouldn’t be worth it considering how the Tempest and Majesty guilds treated us like a useless abandoned horse.”
‘”Hmm.”

So she doesn’t want to surrender, but doesn’t want to fight either. I wondered what she really wanted.

“If you can listen to just one request, I will let you have this victory, as well as complete control over all of the Chaos guild.”

It was a nice-sounding deal. But knowing what that ‘one thing’ is was the important part.

“Let us hear it first.”

Katalina asked me first. Though she was still exuding a fighting spirit, Katalina always prioritized analyzing the pros and cons of everything so she was suppressing her anger through rationality.

“My demand is simple. Me, Miss Tiara here, and one other person desperately wish to challenge you, Miss Artoria, alone. Of course, whether we win or lose, the moment that Miss Artoria accepts this offer, I shall give up all of my rights over the Chaos guild and completely dissolve the guild itself at the same time.”

“Wha-?”

I was more flabbergasted by what she said in the latter part. Even if they feel that their defeat is certain, the Chaos guild is still a powerful guild. Yet she is planning to completely dissolve it just because they lost one big fight? I couldn’t understand it at all from a logical point of view.

“I understand why you can’t understand it, but… with Cloud’s death, our Chaos guild had lost all sense of cohesiveness from that moment on. Rather than have this castle built with sand slowly crumble, I shall completely collapse it myself.”

Since she couldn’t handle seeing someone hold what they had built with their own hands be destroyed by someone else, she wanted to destroy it herself…

I felt that she was very spiteful yet I could also understand her reasoning at the same time.

“But as you have said, this guild will fall apart even without any action, so why would our alliance’s lord need to challenge you all?”

Katalina, who was just standing there listening, refuted Wine’s explanation.

“Sigh… it’s fine for you to not accept our request. But let me tell you one piece of information. If you all hold yourselves here any longer, the Majesty and Tempest guilds which have a long history of establishment will have much more difficult and dangerous defenses.”
“?”
“Because the Storm and Zenon guilds have decided to ally with them.”

But that situation was a bit too early. They still have hostility… wait a minute. Just then, Wine definitely said to herself that her guild had been abandoned by them.

All the strife that Zenon had between the Chaos guild was all from Tiara which the Chaos guild had hired. Only then did I realize the whole situation.

“They’ve cast the Chaos guild aside so as to appease the Zenon guild!”
“That’s correct.”

Making an expression that looked a little pitiful, Wine had a bitter smile on her face.