Chapter 282.

Now, there were no more enemies trying to climb up the wall. On the battlefield outside the fortification, there were only enemy soldiers fleeing. Hostile soldiers who succeeded in climbing the wall sensed their defeat, and they threw away their weapons, hoping that they would be taken prisoner.

"Command headquarters speaking to the entire army. Chase the defeated, but don’t go too far, and minimize unnecessary killing."

I magically trapped the fallen Hunters in a corner and healed their wounds as I gave out commands. Then, I made a personal call to the chief of staff. "Chief of Staff-nim, please contact the surrounding territories and have them send troops to take care of the prisoners.”

From the looks of it, this was a huge victory, with prisoners numbering in the tens of thousands. Since the vanguard’s next strategy was to continue advancing, there was no time to manage prisoners until General Orphina’s main forces arrived.

- Ahahaha! All right. By the way, this is one of the empire’s greatest victories throughout every war it’s been in. No matter how advantageous the defending side of the siege may be, we annihilated them immediately at the beginning.

In general, when you talk about annihilation, you’d think that everyone was killed with no one left behind, but in war, annihilation essentially meant that the enemy could not function properly.

"I didn’t know it would turn out this well either.”

I was lucky in many ways. From the enemy’s point of view, they would have tried to gather information about the empire vanguard’s advance with reconnaissance, so they wouldn’t have expected that we’d come charging at them at the start. If I hadn’t analyzed the enemy vanguard with a satellite beforehand, my first course of action would be to gather information as well.

I told the truth, but the chief of staff perceived it as humility.

- Hahaha, you’re so modest. You commanded as if you were watching the enemy’s movements in real-time. With that level of prediction, it’s basically foreknowledge.

This was natural since, rather than making predictions, I actually was watching the enemy as they moved, directing the soldiers while observing.

"Haha, you’re exaggerating. Anyways, I will leave it to you."

- Yeah, it’ll probably take a day.

"The soldiers will have to rest for a day before mobilizing anyway, so that’s perfect. Then, I’ll end the line."

- All right. Good work.

After ending the communication, I looked at Mac hyung, who was having fun. Excited from having his first real fight in a long time, Mac hyung loosed arrows at the striped cat while jumping around and dodging its attacks. The striped cat narrowly avoided Mac hyung’s arrows and charged.

"Let’s see, is there any jerky left?" I took beef jerky out of my pocket space and watched Mac hyung’s fight. As I did this, Mac hyung approached after avoiding the striped cat’s wildly-swinging clawed hands, firing an arrow at the cat’s chin.

"Keuk!" The striped cat just barely managed to pull back and avoid the arrow.

However, Mac punched the cat in the side with martial arts, his foe too slow to respond while it was dodging. He yelled, "Enlightenment! Breaking Ice!"

The striped cat hurriedly rolled to the ground to avoid the awl-like fist full of sharp, penetrating force. Yet, he was unable to dodge entirely, and the punch penetrated the protective aura and tore a long strip off the cat’s skin.

"Hahaha! It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a fun fight!” shouted Mac.

The striped cat laughed loudly, grabbing his bleeding side, "Ahahaha! How scary! A powerful arrow at long range, a sharp close-up combat technique at a close distance.”

"We have skills called martial arts.”

"Martial arts? I see. You are a Crow! Hahaha! Scary, how scary! As expected, they are unrivaled in battle!"

Even though he said it was scary, the striped cat laughed joyfully and gave off martial aura. The wound on the cat’s side healed so quickly that it was visibly closing. This was the first time I’ve seen the super healing power of the Hunter Tribe in person.

"Oh, how fascinating.”

The striped cat smirked when Mac was amazed, and he boasted, "Even within the Hunter Tribe, this is a recovery technique that only those of the great warrior level can wield."

So that’s why the Hunters I faced fell without regenerating.

The striped cat glanced at the battlefield outside the walls and smiled bitterly. "It looks like we’ve already been defeated."

Mac hyung shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, it seems so, but you don’t have to be so hard on yourself. Our victory is because there’s a mischievous boy on our side who has a suitable mind for being evil.”

That assessment was too much.

"Hahahaha! Is that so!? Was there a man like that!?" The striped cat smiled cheerfully.

The merry laughter of the cat gradually stopped, and he spoke seriously. "It is shameful as a warrior to surrender just because we have been defeated on the battlefield. Will you hang out with me till the end, Young Crow!?”

"Of course! It’s not refreshing if you don’t see it to the end!"

The two stared at their foe before leaping toward each other, not waiting for the other to make the first move. The striped cat kicked down vigorously at Mac hyung with strong aura on his legs. While avoiding the cat’s kick, Mac hyung fired three arrows.

Kwang-!

Part of the wall, which had been kept sturdy with magic, collapsed from the striped cat’s kick and produced a cloud of dust. This was quite an impressive show of strength, considering that even a decent amount of force wouldn’t leave a scratch on the walls.

I backed away, avoiding the rubble and dirt. In this situation where visibility was obstructed, Mac hyung jumped high through the dust and shot an arrow while flying through the air. The roar of the walls being destroyed with each mana-filled arrow echoed.

"Wow, the cost of the repairs is going to be crazy."

Mac hyung’s arrow destroyed the wall as much as the striped cat did, if not more. At that time, a violent gust of wind blew from the dust cloud, and five powerful streams of strong aura rushed out. Mac hyung quickly gathered his martial arts and kicked the air to avoid the strong auras.

"Crrrrrr...!" The striped cat’s form was revealed as the dust cloud settled, and he looked like a half-wild animal, arrows stuck all over his body.

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Mac hyung turned in the air and landed on the wall. As soon as he landed, the striped cat quickly charged with strong aura all over his body. Mac hyung did not avoid the charge but responded by pumping mana at full power into an arrow and firing it.

Kwang-!

Massive amounts of opposing mana collided, causing an explosion with a boom, and the striped cat was buried in the wreckage of the collapsed wall, unconscious.

"Uaah, that was fun!" Mac hyung sank into place from lack of mana.

However, his expression told me that he felt good after sweating refreshingly. I threw Mac hyung a mana recovery potion and spoke. "Good job."

"Oh! It’s the thing called an MP potion. Thank you, Youngest Master."

As I stared at Mac hyung while he thanked me and drank the potion, I asked in a low voice, "But you were calling me a mischievous boy?”

Mac hyung laughed jovially, "Ahahaha! Of course! Look at the things you’ve done. Can you do that with a normal mind? You shrewd fellow."

Mac hyung pointed to the wall that was now included in the post-battle cleanup. I snorted at this and said, "If you keep doing that, I may reveal to the world why hyung has a strange beard and an odd way of speaking."

My threat made Mac hyung turn pale and begin to stutter. "Young, Youngest Master! Anything but that! I’m sorry!”

Lancelot had just finished fighting, and he inquired with an innocent face, "By the way, why do you insist on that beard and tone?”

The dog that was Lancelot’s opponent hung upside down in the air, sealed in a mana-induced slumber. Unlike with Mac hyung, the only signs of Lancelot’s battle on the wall were from the Hunters.

"You’ve improved."

Although his opponent was a step weaker than the Hunter Mac hyung faced, it still wouldn’t have been easy. Yet, he still overpowered him cleanly.

Lancelot scratched his head after being embarrassed by my compliment. "Hehe, no. I’m still a long way off."

“I caught one, too, Master." Gwalhabad tied and dragged over the stunned fox, not even having a scratch. He continued, "I’m sorry, I wanted to capture him alive so that his fur wouldn’t be damaged as much as possible, but it’s a little marred."

From what I could see, I couldn’t tell where it was damaged. I said, "No, the fur will be treated humanely as a prisoner. I won’t take off his skin."

Gwalhabad exclaimed regretfully, "Really? Then, I worked hard to capture him without damaging his skin for nothing."

From Gwalhabad’s thought transmissions, I could feel that his emotions were causing him to blame himself for being distracted by the fur, putting guarding me on the back burner.

But he didn’t really mean to turn the Hunter into fur, did he? I can’t ask because I’m scared.

The imperial army was returning to the wall after more or less finishing cleaning up the battlefield.

"Is the next battle the fortress siege?"

This battle was based on siege defense, but defending in a siege and besieging an enemy were on different levels in terms of difficulty.

* * *

After waking up, Aries yawned and went down to the first floor of the mansion.

"Are you up, Master?"

At Malecia’s greeting, Aries nodded slightly; his eyes partially closed from tiredness.

"There’s a document that’s been left behind by that great warrior of the Green Mane tribe. Would you like to check it?" Malecia asked.

Aries reached out silently, and Malecia naturally handed over the documents. While Aries was reviewing the documents, Malecia poured black tea into a glass and added sugar cubes.

Aries drank Malecia’s tea and said, "What happened to the disciples?"

Malecia smiled bitterly. This was a question that expressed Aries’s extremely indifferent personality toward others. However, one couldn’t blame Aries because there were too many magicians who claimed to be his disciple when all he did was point something out in passing. Aries’s question was not really asking about those who were considered his disciples but about his followers.

"You will have to ask Alpha about things regarding the magicians, but there are about six thousand soldiers."

Not only did magicians follow Aries, but also lowly mercenaries as well.

"Six thousand? Wasn’t it around 400 last time?”

"That was 18 years ago. And that’s when I came under Master,” Malecia pointed out.

Aries sipped his black tea dully and nodded. "It’s only been a while, but the number has increased a lot.”

Aries acted surprised, as if he had been told this happened in just a week.

"These are lives saved by Master while he was wandering around the battlefield to gather death aura."

"I did?" Aries tilted his head as if he had never heard of such a thing.

"Well, I knew Master wouldn’t be aware of this. They’re following us by their own accord anyway, so it’s nothing Master needs to pay attention to."

"Hmm, then all right."

When told he didn’t need to pay attention to them, Aries indeed stopped thinking about them. Aries savored his black tea and handed the documents to Malecia. "After roughly looking through them, it seems the person we met at the Alps is in the imperial army. If he’s there, I’d say the frontlines at the border have collapsed, and our vanguard has lost at this point."

"What? Is that possible? It’s around the time that the empire’s vanguard would first arrive,” Malecia said, shocked.

Aries took out a magic wand from his pocket space and replied, “If a great madosa wants to, it’s not difficult to erase a simple vanguard. Although, I don’t think he’d do something that’s such a waste of mana."

Standing up, Aries made a warp gate in the air.

Malecia stepped back anxiously. "Will you wait a moment, Master?"

"Delta will be at Shellen Fortress. I’ll head over there leisurely."

Having no good memories of the warp gate, Malecia retreated again and said, "Ma, Master, it doesn’t take long to go to Shellen Fortress, so!"

Malecia was backing away when he fell into a warp gate that Aries had created on the floor, and he screamed, "Maaaasterrrr!!"

Aries gave a warning to the voice calling him. "I made a gate behind you, so be careful.”

But it was already too late.

"The tea is delicious.” Aries just leisurely relished the tea.