Chapter 209: The One Who Holds the Line
The moment the enemy's numbers swelled into the thousands, the cavalry's movements came to a halt as well. The time for scouting and small-scale skirmishes had passed.
Now, they had to face it head-on.
Before the dawn shift could even end, messengers carried orders into the Alliance Forces' camp. There was no commotion. The recruits took up their spears and filed out beyond the garrison.
Their hands trembled slightly, but the lower officers said nothing. They simply adjusted the angle of a shield without a word, or repositioned someone's footing. Even that brief touch was enough to steady the shaking.
"We can win."
Someone murmured. No one replied. It was less an expression of anxiety, and more a quiet confirmation spoken to oneself. The orders were brief, and their delivery was swift. The formation was corrected with just a few commands, and before long, one stretch of the plain was filled by the Alliance Forces' army.
The front line was already moving.
As it had been yesterday, today too, the fighting would begin from the outside. The only difference was that the axis of that fight was not the Mountain Rabbits, but the recruits.
They had not come to hold on—they had come to win.
In the distance, the cavalry set off. Following the sound of hoofbeats, the soldiers matched their stride and advanced. The first engagement came a little past noon.
Monstrous birds wheeled overhead, and the breathing of the wild beasts had gone completely silent.
The scouts' signal was brief, but the main force's response was swift. Before the enemy's approach could even be announced, the forward units had already assumed combat formation.
"Shields up!"
Veterans who had lived through large-scale battles held the center firm. As the Knights wheeled around to strike the flank, the recruits leveled their spears through the gaps in the shield wall. The formation was neither too thin nor too thick. Whatever the enemy, it was a shape suited for absorbing and countering.
"They're closing in! Enemy distance, one hundred and fifty paces!"
"Hold!"
Enemy silhouettes flickered through the gaps of bare, skeletal branches. An endless horde—The Corrupted and massive beasts mixed together.
The sound of swallowed breath drifted here and there, yet no one pulled their feet back. Only after holding firm as they had been trained did the speartips push forward.
Clang!
As enemy bodies slammed into shields, a chain of metallic sounds erupted. The recruits focused only on the movement directly in front of them. Maintaining the speartips, trusting and relying on the comrades standing alongside them. Whenever someone was pushed back or fell, the person behind immediately filled the gap.
At one point, feet became tangled.
In the instant a recruit lost his balance under the force of a beast's charge, a veteran soldier's large shield came in from behind. Without a word, he braced and held, restoring the displaced position. The disruption did not last long.
A few minutes later, the enemy's first assault was broken.
"It's Zion!"
"Don't scatter! Hold your position!"
At that moment, a massive beast standing several meters tall drove itself into the center of the front line. A monster capable of sending dozens flying with a single sweep of its arm. Even its movements were fast, making it an enemy the soldiers' abilities could scarcely handle.
At that, the Mountain Rabbits stepped forward.
While the Knights drove into the flank to sever the enemy's midsection, Volga burst forward with his greatsword.
"The orders stand! Hold!"
He cleaved through the massive beast's ankle in a single strike. As the creature's bulk tilted to one side, he circled to its back and split its spine to finish it.
Thud.
The oppressive weight of sheer size belonged not to the enemy, but to Volga.
The soldiers' gazes snapped to him, but he did not indulge any ambition beyond that. He cut only as much as was necessary, then immediately fell back.
In the meantime, similar fights were breaking out all across the front line.
On the side led by Marik, holy light burst forth. The soldiers caught their breath and reformed their lines. The light did not linger long. It announced its presence only in the moments it was needed, then quietly disappeared.
On the left flank of the battlefield, Airien led the elves in bringing down massive beasts. Swift movements. Monstrous birds dove down with talons bared from above, but even those she met head-on with fluid motions.
On the right flank, the prince of the Latia Republic, Adrian Deconti, held the line. The man who had by now earned a reputation as a one-armed swordsman spat refined flames from the tip of his blade and cut down scores of enemies.
Raaaahhhh!!
Naturally, the recruits' fighting spirit surged.
The shield wall pushed back against the enemies in turn. One step, then another. Without even realizing it, they drove their feet forward with force.
It was an instinctive recognition.
Now, it was the enemies who were the ones retreating.
Just then, Hadiya approached from the rear. The moment she arrived, she blew the war horn and carried a warning across the entire front line. The Mountain Rabbits were the first to react, with the Knights and veteran soldiers following behind.
"Hold formation! Do not move on your own!"
"Anyone who bolts out ahead will die by my hand first!!"
The recruits caught their breath behind their shields, yet stamped their feet in place. They did not understand why they had to stay put, but in the end they did not push forward.
And soon, the reason became clear.
The tide of battle was shifting rapidly. The enemy's front line, which had seemed on the verge of collapsing, abruptly surged back. A fresh horde of beasts had joined the fray.
The soldiers drew a delayed gasp of relief.
If they had rashly transitioned to offense, it would have turned into a melee. It was only then that they breathed out their admiration for the command's judgment, but the Mountain Rabbits seemed accustomed to it.
Volga gave a snort.
"See, there's nothing to lose by listening to Calix."
His friend had yet to set foot on the battlefield. Even so, he was watching over everything from above.
Above all else, ‘results’ mattered.
In Calix's mind, the option of retreating did not exist. Other than continuing to win, there was simply no other way from the start.
As the fighting continued, he was quietly aligning the things he would show De Generitum with the things the Alliance Forces would gain in the meantime.
The recruits took a fresh grip on their spears.
This time, the trembling had lessened a little.
***
From that day forward, battles broke out without a single day's rest.
There were no points where a major collapse occurred, but the entire front line shook simultaneously. Pressing on the left caused the right to loosen, and holding one place brought pressure from somewhere else.
The enemy's offensive did not crash down all at once like a great wave. Instead, it tested the Alliance Forces' endurance by changing shape irregularly.
Even so, the reason they were able to hold out was not a complicated one.
The soldiers had caught sight of the same figure multiple times.
In the instant before a formation gave way, in the moment rear reinforcements were deployed, or at the critical threshold where they had to endure just one more beat.
He was not always at the front, but neither was he watching from the rear. At a point that was ambiguous to call the center of the battlefield—yet critical enough that if it began to crumble, a chain collapse would follow—he had always already arrived.
"……Was that Calix just now, too?"
Someone asked quietly, but no answer came back. Instead, a veteran soldier gave a slow nod.
"Figured he'd be here."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Just had that feeling."
The explanation stopped there.
Calix's arrival did not mean the fighting was over. There were even cases where it grew more intense.
Yet strangely, a tide that had hovered on the edge of defeat came to a hard stop. The allied front lines meshed back together, and the feet of soldiers who had been pushed back found their footing once more.
He never stayed long.
A brief gesture, or a few words deploying the Masters, and he was already moving to the next place. That movement never ceased. He appeared and disappeared again and again, in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.
At some point, the soldiers stopped crying out his name. Instead, they looked first to confirm which direction he was standing.
"The fact that he's here means we can still hold on."
"Right. At the very least, it means we're not at our worst."
That was the extent of it.
That day too, after one intense exchange ended, a few of them came to catch their breath. Calix looked out over the front lines of the battlefield and clenched and unclenched his hand. Inside his gauntlet, stiffened joints cracked.
He drew a breath.
Every moment was a chain of judgments. When one choice ended, the next problem was immediately presented. Reading the flow of mana alone was not enough. He had to maximize the efficiency of his allied forces.
How long such choices would remain possible—no one could know.
But the front line was holding because of his movements. Someone who saw him called him ‘steadfast’, while another said he was ‘someone you must never face as an enemy’.
Yet the thoughts of those who had seen him up close were different. He was not a man who fought. He was the one who held on so that meaningless deaths would not continue to follow.
Thanks to that, the sun set once more.
The front line was still holding. Nothing had collapsed greatly anywhere, and nothing had been completely breached anywhere. With an eerie consistency, everything was holding its place.
And the soldiers who had come to realize this naturally turned their gaze in the same direction.
There, Calix stood.
***
As the sun declined, the battlefield was quickly cleared.
The wounded had already been carried to the rear, and only shattered shields and broken brims remained scattered across the ground. There were not many bodies. The casualties were strangely few for how fierce the fighting had been.
The defensive line had held, and the supply route had not been cut. The operation had largely proceeded as planned.
Far too smoothly.
The Mountain Rabbits dismounted from their horses and gathered around the campfire. There was no loud laughter, no air of celebrating victory. Only the tending of weapons that went on unusually long.
Volga removed his helmet and set it on the ground. With one long exhale releasing his tension, his eyes were still fixed on something beyond the front line.
"Doesn't something feel strange?"
When he spoke lowly, Basim replied curtly.
"What's strange now?"
"Just…… the battles we've been fighting lately."
Royce looked up from sharpening his sword. Volga let his words trail off, but the meaning was clear.
"The enemies keep swarming in, but I don't get the feeling that a blade has been pressed to our throat."
"Want me to press an axehead against it instead?"
"No, Master. What I mean is……"
Zahira furrowed her brow. She understood what Volga meant.
It wasn't that the fights had been easy. There had been plenty of blood shed, and plenty of sweat. But rather than a sense of having repelled the enemy, there was a stronger feeling of having been ‘permitted’ to.
Marik looked toward Calix and added,
"……Volga's words have merit. The variety of monsters—including the Tunnel Worms—has been diverse, but no high-ranking individuals have appeared."
"Even the Masters had breathing room."
"Right. The truly powerful ones haven't shown their faces even once."
That was precisely what was strange.
Even if not a legion commander, mid-tier individuals at the very least should have appeared. Yet only endless waves of The Corrupted surged forth, with no sign of anything else whatsoever.
It was then.
Gregor, idly sipping from a pot of soup that hadn't even come to a boil yet, broke into a grin.
"The harvest time hasn't come yet."
Everyone turned to look at the old man.
"Farming and fighting, they follow the same principle at their root. You can't reap just by picking up a scythe. It's something you do after preparing your tools, emptying the storehouse, and having the workers settled in their positions."
At that, Volga tilted his head in uncertainty and asked,
"Old man, we're…… The farmers, right? I don't exactly want to be the ones getting reaped."
He shrugged with a perfectly calm expression.
"Well, we'll find out soon enough!"
The old man laughed heartily, and faint smiles spread across the Mountain Rabbits as well. But they did not let Gregor's words pass through one ear and out the other.
The Mountain Rabbits each tended their weapons. With their eyes they watched beyond the battlefield, and with their ears they listened to the cries of the beasts.
And Gregor's words became reality sooner than expected.
"Calix, that is……"
A deep surge of dark mana rose.