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Volume 7 Chapter 7 Part 1

Translator: Kell

Okay, I see what happened now.

According to the map, there should be a city here, but I found nothing. Instead, all I saw was a clean land with piles of rubble here and there. The place that was marked as a building on the map was now an empty lot.

In short, the enemy destroyed the city of Raijis and turned it into one big vacant plot of land. I can think of a few reasons why they destroyed the place after spending effort to occupy it, but if I had to guess, it’s probably to get rid of any blindspots. Leaving the city intact would give enemies places to hide, but a flat land would offer nothing to conceal yourself.

Right at the spot where I sensed mana were three men sitting down, presumably the enemy. Their equipment marked them as the spellcaster type. There was a high chance that they were Sages. They had their backs turned to each other, watching the outside of the city.

Slowly, I walked towards one of the men. There was nothing between us to obstruct any vision. If the enemy had seen through my Mana Invisibility, they would have already noticed my presence.

“Sachylis. Anything from the enemy inside the city?”

“No. Nothing at the moment.”

Looks like Search Enemy has not picked up anything yet, which means that the enemy is not aware of my presence. The thing with Mana Invisibility is that its effects get reduced when walking, so if you know how to see through it, they should have seen me by now. I have never seen any enemy use Mana Invisibility, so I guess the people of this world don’t know about the spell.

Mana Invisibility does not mask my hostility, so a Skill like Search Enemy would break my disguise in just a moment. They didn’t seem to be using it either.

Although, it seems that they are prepared for any surprise attacks that employs cloaking magic.

“Inform all our troops,” I said. “All the buildings in the city have been destroyed, leaving only an empty plot of land.”

“Copy that. Since there are no obstructions, should we consider sniping them?”

“No. They put up huge barriers. They’re prepared for snipers.”

There are barriers around the enemy, each several dozen meters in size. The barriers themselves were not that strong, not providing that much of a protection. But long-range sniping spells don’t really have high penetrating power in the first place. There are many other powerful magic spells out there, but most of them are the type that explodes on impact, so if used against these larger kind of barriers, the blast won’t even reach the enemy.

It would consume a great deal of mana to keep such a large barrier active while making it impervious. So these barriers’ power is kept to a minimum. Rather than blocking attacks, it’s the kind of barrier that uses distance to dampen power.

Offensive spells such as Steam Explosion can only be cast from outside the barriers, so firing through one of this size, it won’t be powerful enough to kill them with a single blow. A large but weak barrier is basically effective countermeasure against surprise attacks. Destroying it is easy, but the moment I break it, they’ll be aware of my presence.

If we have a lot of personnel who can fire long-range high-powered sniping magic, we can cast spells like arrows raining down on the enemy, but the timing has to be perfect or the second volley would not serve as surprise attacks anymore. There aren’t anyone among Count Meigis’ army who’s an expert sniper to begin with. Moreover, the Count’s army was not trained for that kind of fighting style anyway. They’re more like an army formed to fight monsters, except this time, I’m forcing them to fight humans instead. Of course they don’t have any special techniques like sniping.

Then again, the enemy’s countermeasure isn’t exactly perfect either.

For now, I’ll take out one of them.

I walked slowly so as not to dispel the Mana Invisibility, and went behind the enemy. The barriers are deployed to surround them, so it’s not like going around would allow me to hit them with spells directly, but it’ll help delay their reaction a little. I swung my sword toward the barrier.

Weaker barriers can be smashed even without critical hits. The moment the barrier was shattered, the enemy kicked the chair he was sitting on and leapt back. Not a bad reaction to a surprise attack, but his movement is only effective against a spell that a living person can dodge.

“Steam Explosion.”

I cast my magic spell, and flames erupted. I don’t even need to check whether he’s alive or dead. Even I have no idea how to suvive a Steam Explosion at close range. Not even Magic Veil can help you.

With my attack, though, the other two noticed me immediately. From here on out, it’s going to be a head-on fight. Before engaging them, I received a call from Sachylis.

“I picked something up with Search Enemy,” she reported. “Two inside Raijis and three near the mountain summit.”

“Copy that. Let me know if there’s any movement on the summit.”

Two inside Raijis means that the guy I attacked just now was definitely dead. Their numbers were within expectations. What’s more, no enemy lurking around to ambush us makes things easier. The only thing that bothers me are the enemies at the summit of the mountain.

The summit of the Raijis active volcano is the perfect place to use the Awakening System. The fact that they are securing it means that the enemy is aware of its utility.

“Sandstorm!” the enemy shouted.

The enemy cast the magic spell Sandstorm, as we expected based on the intel we gathered beforehand. It’s a spell that combines an attack range similar to the one I use, Steam Explosion, with the power to kill me with a single blow.

I’m using Magic Veil, so I can hold out for a few seconds, but Sandstorm lasts longer. If I run away to escape, I might just survive, but in return I will have most of my mana drained, making it impossible to even fight back.