After they had wandered around in circles along the back alleys, Karito and the group of refugees returned back to the main street.
Fortunately they didn’t return to the spot where the dragon’s air raid took place. Moreover, the distance to the headquarters from here was only a stone’s throw away.
When they arrived, there were no figures of refugees present on the main street. Battle sounds echoing everywhere in the downtown reached Karito’s group.
“Fi, finally we are able to get out.....”
“Are you tired out already? You are pathetic.”
“Rather than physically, I am more so tired mentally. How long do you think have we wandered around the alleys?”
“I’m sorry, it’s all because I wasn’t able to remember the way properly......”
“Ah, no, I am not blaming you! Anyway, let’s go to the drawbridge, I don’t know if they will drop the bridge down though......”
While heading towards the headquarters, they stuck within the shadows of the surrounding buildings in caution of the Sky Cavalry. Then Reona showed a reaction, following her, the cat eared mother and daughter pair’s ears twitched and they looked towards the direction of the castle.
“Something is approaching. This...... is the sound of a horse drawn carriage.”
“Have the Alwina army invaded this far already?
He pointed the muzzle on that direction, but it was of unnecessary worry. Just like Reona said, what appeared on the other side was a covered wagon drawn by two horses. The riders who were holding onto the reins were dwarves with blood-stained bandages wrapped around their hairy head.
Karito’s group watched as they drove the carriage to the base of the drawbridge and they raised an unbelievably loud voice towards the soldiers across the moat.
“I’m bringing an injured person! Drop down the bridge and treat them please!”
The suspended bridge was dropped down immediately. The Defence soldiers defending the bridge instantly crossed over from the headquarters side to help the injured fellows coming down from the carriage. Everyone had considerably deep wounds and their bandages were mostly dyed red with blood.
Looking that it was the opportunity to cross the bridge, they dashed out to approach the carriage. Then, they discovered a familiar face.
It was Ordy’s subordinate who took care of Karito and the group back in the barracks. He had bandages on his thighs and stomach. It seemed that he was still conscious, he immediately noticed the appearance of his superior’s daughters.
“You guys! Didn’t you already take refuge!?”
“We are in the middle of evacuating when we are attacked by the Alwina army and was almost roasted alive! Leaving that aside, has father’s unit also been deployed!?”
“That is right. We have been dispatched in order to intercept a detached force of the Alwina army which invaded from the gate of the Imperial city’s side, but it doesn’t seem that we could hold on any longer .......”
Before Ordy’s subordinate was able to finish his talk, Reona ran off ―――― towards the battlefield.
Karito and others didn’t even had the chance to stop her. In a blink of an eye, her back had already become small. You Idiot! Karito wanted to curse, but those words would no longer reach the said person anymore.
Now that things were like this, it might as well be hanged for a sheep than as a lamb. Karito instantly decided.
[TLC: a proverb ]
“Rina, you’ll evacuate to the headquarters with these people, alright?”
“Wh, what about you Karito-san? Do you intend to run after onee-chan?”
“There is no way I could let her run amok! Excuse me, I’m leaving this child in your hands. !”
“Karito-san!”
Ignoring Rina’s cries, Karito chased after Reona, and retraced his steps to the main street
After a few minutes of full sprint, he saw a barricade that seemed to be a defensive line that Ordy and his troops built.
Hundreds of human soldiers and soldiers of various races had weapons in their hands, supporting the barricade from being breached. They slashed and killed, knocking off the Alwina soldiers that were trying to climb over the bridge, they were being pierced with arrows and pushing back repeatedly, and each time, the number of injured people were steadily increasing. The sounds of object clashing with each other rang like a big chorus.
“Why did you come to this place!”
“Because I can not endure it! Everyone in the village was ma.s.sacred, I refused to be the only one to run away when father is fighting!!”
Among the sound of sword fightings, the voice of those two quarrelling reached Karito ears. As Reona and Ordy with his silver hair stained dark red continued to deal with the Alwina army offenses, the parent and child continued to display their quarrel.
Their fists landed on the faces of the Alwina soldiers trying to climb over the barricade, resulting in the soldiers to be blown several meters backwards like a wire action. The next moment, they had grabbed the Alwina soldiers’ scruffs and thrown them back to the other side of barricade.
Reona undauntedly dodged a spear thrusted by an Alwina soldier climbing over from the other side, and brandishing her glowing stanced fist, she sent an uppercut without hesitation. Karito became a witness to the moment when a human being rotated vertically for a first time.
He was wondering where such power was being hidden inside that woman’s thin arms. Is this the effect of spirit magic or something of the like? As expected of fantasy.
Anyway, both parent and child duo were fighting in such a powerful manner. Both of them seemed to be a grappling type of martial artists .
Similar scenes surrounded the two. The Centaurs swung their huge axes, cutting the Alwina soldiers in two, on the opposite direction, beastmen with cat ears and tails were slicing the enemies with the knives on both of their hands, and the dwarves released a full swing of their spiked hammer at the Alwina soldiers, transforming them into mince meat together with their armors.
Even the ordinary human soldiers confronted their opponents bravely with long swords and spears. Even those soldiers who had served long military service, were exerting their fighting ability to the fullest. However, the opponents were still able to overwhelm the defence force with a military unit more than ten times their size.
Unfortunately, they have already exhausted their bomb traps, both the magicians who were out of the stamina and the injured had already been withdrawn. (Magicians who were able to fire powerful far-range attacks were given preferential treatments.)
“Karito, You! Why did you bring my daughter here!”
“I’m not the one to bring her here!? Rina had already evacuated to the headquarters together with your subordinates!”
“You too should retreat soon to the headquarters with my daughter! We couldn’t hold this place anymore!”
“Then, Ordy-san should come too!”
“I can’t do that, I need to hold against the Alwina army until my subordinates and volunteer troops were retreated safely. I’ll become the anchorman here, that is why I want you to retreat with everyone else! I beg of you!”
For a man like Ordy who possessed both the air of chivalry and intimidation, to be pleading while desperately repelling the enemy troops’ offenses, surely many would fall and gave their all to comply.
But, Karito was different.
He didn’t follow Ordy’s request, and on contrary asked back this question.
“........ so all you need is time right ?”
With determination in his eyes, Karito took out the PDA from his pocket and operated it. Unable to understand the meaning behind his action, (in the first place, it was the first time that he saw a PDA) Ordy sent an agitated look as if saying ‘what are you doing?’ and he picked up a blood stained spear and thrusted it into an Alwina soldier’s throat.
Karito’s finger moved restlessly swapping through the contents inside the equipment list and item box. When he selected the icon, the item immediately turned into reality. One after another, he equipped the item he was eyeing from his equipment list.
As if it was a magic trick, the next moment, several hand grenades were held in Karito’s hands.
The official name is M67 fragmentation grenade. Consolidating its name in the as a Frag Grenade, Karito pulled the pin with his mouth. The safety lever remained restrained.
He threw all of them together to the other side of barricade. As the safety lever flew with a light metal sound, it ignited the time fuse inside. It quickly disappeared between the hordes of the Alwina army.
“Everyone, prepare for an explosionnnnnn!!!!!!!”
He shouted as loud as possible so as as to not be drowned by the sound of battle. All the defence forces reacted immediately to Karito’s threatening att.i.tude after looking at the faces of their company next to themselves.
Precisely 4-5 seconds after he had thrown it, explosions occurred continuously in the middle of Alwina soldiers who had been trying to break through the barricade. The shock waves overlapped three to four times and hit against the hurriedly constructed barricade. As most of the shock wave was absorbed by the walls of human bodies, it escaped the fate of destruction.
Many people had seen depictions of bomb blasts with strong flames in the movies, but the real frag grenade was just like what it’s name implied, a weapon for killing an enemy using fragments scattering from the impact of the explosion. The depiction that it could blast away the body of large adult for several meters was almost fictional......while in fact, the most it could do was tear one or two limbs.
The Alwina soldiers who received direct hits by the grenade"s explosion sustained multiple injuries from the iron pieces that scattered, much severely at the parts that were less protected by armor.
Especially those who were caught up nearby the explosion point, the power of the iron shards negated the use of armors. Many lost parts of their limbs midways. Such soldiers quickly died due to the shock of blood loss or intense pain.
As for the lucky ones......they had their necks torn off, or either the fragments pierced through their hearts leading to instant death without any pain. Those who were unlucky suffered from a slow death as they held their lost limbs within the pool of their own blood.
When the other Alwina soldiers who didn’t get dragged into the explosion witnessed such a scene, they tried to make a new offensive moment to stimulate their fighting spirit. In an instant, they filled in the gap between them with the barricade.
But there was one man who tried to stop it.
Immediately after the grenades exploded, Karito jumped to the top of barricade and picked a newly added main weapon from the equipment list. Before the bomb’s smoke cleared up, he had already stood on the top of barricade holding the AA-12 full automatic shotgun.
The ammunition that it used was the 00 buckshot bullets which holds 9 pellets. By installing the drum magazine, it was possible to fire 32 consecutive continuous shots.
Alwina soldiers who suffered serious injuries raised groans of pain underneath him. From the top of barricade, he could see the state of the Alwina army which filled up the main street. Isn’t there about 3,000 people left?
“Sorry, but I have already made up my mind.”
It was a simply a matter of choice. Karito stayed by Ordy’s Defence Force, and eliminated the Alwina army instead.
Don’t show any unnecessary sympathy. He persuaded himself that if he let any of them live, they would surely come back and point their blades to them again. If something were to happen to Reona, Rina or Ordy due to overlooking them, Karito would shoot his own head himself
That is why it was simply a matter of choice.
For the sake of Reona and the few people who were kind to him, he would kill the majority of the Alwina army. Karito could do that.
To live is to kill....... Such phrase pa.s.sed his mind, he had read or heard something similar somewhere before.
The gun in his arms spat out a storm of steel. The gun shot out 350 bullet per minute, and at the rate of over 6 times per second, scattering bullets shot out of the muzzle. The firing sound of 12 gauge worth of gunshots resounded on Karito’s earlobes over and over again.
He slanted the muzzle slightly downward, and swiped it sideways as he barraged towards the Alwina army’s direction. Since they were some distance away, it lost some power but the numerous scattered shots that were released at once covered the lost firepower.
A buckshot the size of a little finger sank into the armor. Tasting the shock for the first time, the bullet penetrated into their body giving damage. Amongst them, many of the soldiers took injuries around the body parts unprotected from their armours by the scattering bullets. Those hit on the neck and face had their flesh gouged out of place. The soldiers who frontally took the strike crumbled down one after another. The detached soldiers’ movement became dull as their vanguards and they were injured all at once.
Karito chased after them immediately. Switching his equipment quickly, he threw a spraying can type of grenade with a different shape aside from the fragment grenade. It fell right in front of the stalled detachment army.
Instead of causing blasts and splinters, it generated a white smoke. However, it was not of any ordinary smoke.
What followed after was the continuous sound of repeated coughing and sneezing. It could be heard coming from the other side of the thin smoke veil from the Alwina army’s side, their reaction was as expected ‘My eyes, my nose, somebody help me!’
The Alwina soldiers who were armed with swords and spears huddled together, falling into confusion as they suffered from the tear gas. Inside the smoke, things took a turn for the worse and they even started an internal breakout.
“Could that be something that blinds their eyes?”
“Yes, it is a tear gas grenade. The gas will remain for a while here and that it should hold them down a little bit. Let’s retreat before the winds changed direction and blow it here......”
It was at this moment when he jumped off from the top of barricade while looking back towards Ordy.
As Karito’s foot was about to touch the ground, a light ball flew out from inside the tear gas and landed just before the barricade. It was a stray magic bullet shot by a magician on the Alwina’s side who panicked after his eyes and nose was ruined by the tear gas and had shot it off accidentally.
Being blown forward from the shock wave transmitted from the gaps of the improvised barrier, Karito accomplished to make an intense kiss with the ground.
‘.......So lame…’ keeping the posture facing the ground without leaking a voice, Karito cried inside his heart.
“...... A, anyways we have gained some time thanks to Karito. All soldiers, retreat back to the headquarters!”
“Ah, Karito, are you okay?”
“Carelessness is one’s greatest enemy......”
He was reflecting while being helped by Reona.
“Sorry Reona, please go back first. I will follow after immediately.”
“What are you saying, you aren’t thinking of confronting such large enemy again alone are you!?”
“No, it is different this time. I am just going to set up some traps to gain us more time.”
The survivors of the detached force spent valuable time till they were able to recover themselves from the confusion after the tear gas dispersed.
When the Sky Cavalry scout informed with hand gestures that the Defence Force which positioned themselves behind the barricade had already retreated, the commander of the detached force formed a battle line to remove the barricade.
The infantries walked over their dead comrades and climbed over the barricade, they threw the household goods that were stacked up, and some destroyed it with swords and axes. It was easy labor without the resistance of the beastman. The improvised barricade disappeared in a matter of minutes.
Once it disappeared, only the abandoned corpses of Defence Army remained on the road. There seemed to be no factor that would block the march of detached force anymore. If things stayed like this, the only thing left to do is only to conquer the enemy’s inner citadel.
Thus, the commander issued an order.
“Advance!”
“””””UOOOOOOOOOOOoooo!!!!!”””””
With a battle cry, the detached force resumed their invasion with a destructive momentum likewise a flash flood.
And to be able to crush such momentum easily, their laid an ambush trap nearby. In the first place, there wasn’t anyone of this world who was able to notice the real nature of the object the size of big lunch box made from iron that was installed within the shadows of the abandoned baggages and corpses.
The name of the object is M18 claymore, a directional personnel land mine.
In there were two interpersonal sensors, a built-in type with an automatic operation type, and a type where the installer could arbitrarily detonate through a remote control. The Claymore which has been set up around the barricade was the former one.
The foot where the vanguard soldier stepped on, invaded the detection range of the interpersonal sensor by a little.
It triggered.
The next moment, dozens of the survivors of the detached force were baptized by 700 shots that scattered in a fan shaped form, and literally, the soldiers burst from their original shape.
“Looks like they had caught the trap well.”
Karito looked back towards the rears where a low explosion echoed, with satisfied looks.
Because he had set up several claymore, even if the Alwina army doesn’t want to, they will still be forced to lost some time and soldiers
“Even though I have seen it so many times, as expected, Karito power is outrageous I think.”
“Not really, using such Claymore as traps is common practice in my world . It is not even my own power.”
“........ to be able to handle such powerful weapon like that [Guns] is your strength huh?”
As he heard a sharp voice filled with coldness and likewise a blade made from ice, he turned his face back and found Ordy staring at him.
Although Karito didn’t have any intentions to trick him, at the very end, he still kept his mouth shut without giving the full details, thus he averted his face with guilty conscience.
Ordy had purposely not question the circ.u.mstances around that area, but there is no way Karito could evade this matter any longer as he had displayed his powers in such a flashy way.
“Still, it is not much of a big deal. Because the guns and bombs which I used here is weapons that is produced in large quant.i.ties in my world.”
“In other words, each soldier in your world are equipped with such powerful weapons?”
“Well that, isn’t wrong, but.”
To be precise, they were only reproductions of weapon of the real world inside the game, with adjusted balance on its performance problems, and exaggerated functions. It even enabled the usage of advanced weaponries seen only in science fictions, just like having one foot thrusted into an experimental stage in reality to some level. On top of it all, as a part of the game system, Karito himself was upgraded as the owner of abilities far beyond ordinary people, and even if he was to give a rough explanation, there are many thing that he couldn’t explain .
So, when Karito was glared with a questioning gaze from a powerful person such as Ordy, even if he had acquired boldness from the experience of setting foot on a scene of bloodshed, his basic mental content as someone weak hearted, Karito’s mind was on verge of crumbling down on the spot.
This time, Karito waited for his expression to change back to sincerity from someone about to cry, for if Ordy had wished to touch on the subject, it would be very distressful. It was so uncomfortable for Karito that he wondered if there could be anymore battle with the Alwina army that he could partic.i.p.ate in.
“I do not think you have to explain the anymore details this time. However, since it has become like this, could you please lend your powers to repel the Alwina army? I believe this is the only way to use your abilities.”
“Father......”
“..... that is my intention. Since I can’t escape anymore, the only way is to fight. I will not abandon Reona and the others .”
“That is pleasant thing to say!”
[TL: the raw is this 嬉しい事言ってくれるじゃないかいこの！it is like “what a nice/embarra.s.sment thing you said” it is more or less like those anime girl hit the back of the mc out of embarra.s.sment]
“Gufu!”
Karito was. .h.i.t on the back of his head by a smiling Reona whose face turned slightly red, managed to barely avoid kissing the ground for a second time as they head towards the headquarters. Pain stung through the back of his head.
“On 4 o’clock direction, Enemy Sky Cavalry formation approaches!”
They looked up towards the sky from the sudden warning, and there surely was a formation of 4 Sky Cavalry raiding dragons tearing through the sky.
However, the formation of dragon did not head towards Karito’s group, but towards the headquarters. It seemed like they were trying to bomb the headquarters directly. At another direction, another formation with similar mobility was also approaching towards the headquarters. Due to the difference of alt.i.tude and long distance, Karito could only see it off.
“Does the air superiority already be taken by the enemies ?”
“Ah, because there is a big difference in strength and ability of the Citadel Defense and the Sky Cavalry force, there’s nothing much we can do. The Sky force of this side is as good as defeated.”
“Doesn"t that mean that the sky defenses are as good as naked?”
“No, it depends .”
Simultaneously with Ordy’s words, a stream of light shot from the roof of the headquarters.
Giving the impression similar to a magic canon, he understood that it was a type of magic. But immediately, the beam of light deviated suddenly from its path and chased around the tail of the formation dragons as if it was a hunting dog. And not just one, but there were 10 of it, intercepting another Sky Cavalry from another direction with a bending beam of the same size.
When the light ball caught on the tails of Alwina Sky Cavalry, it exploded like a chain reaction. Jostled by the shockwaves, the other Sky Cavalry units who did not receive a direct hit were caught up in the impact and made to fall in semi circular motions along with their dragons and gryphons.
“....... what is that?”
“Magic missile. It is cla.s.sified as an elementary magic, but there is only one person who is able to shoot this much and at the same time and manipulate it individually. She’s the only one in this town who can accomplish such a feat. ”
As he looked closer, the ringleader who shot out the barrage of magic missiles wrapped her body in a black robe.
Amongst all the people Karito had recognized, being the only magician and with such appearance, there was only one person that crossed his mind .
When it was confirmed that all survivors including Karito and Reona have crossed the bridge, the bridge was lifted, cutting off the route that connected the headquarters to the downtown area.