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Volume 4 Chapter 3 Part 1

Chapter 3: Battle

August 17, 2013 of the Continental Calendar

Villar Constance, the Earl of Artuk, climbed the watchtower on the sea side of his castle and watched the fleet of Dartania approaching from the other side of the sea.

Beside him is Margret, still in her crimson dress. She sneaked out from among Dartania’s fleet and informed Vilar that Dartania’s new Viceroy, Milza Kuches, had switched sides and joined the Factory Alliance.

In addition to Margret, Laura Hadley, Vilar’s new Head Mage and other Mages close to her were also gathered together with Vilar and Margaret. Colleen Messala, who specializes in Transmutation Magic, was preparing for the deployment of her self-made magic treasure weapon, 「Ray Mirror」. The navy of Artuk has also departed from the port where it was anchored, and it was now on its way to the open sea, where the fleets of both armies were about to clash head-on.

「Tell Admiral Latua to pull the enemy fleet towards the castle. 」

Villar instructed Laura.

「Understood! 」

Laura uses her magic wand and immediately contacted the Mage who was stationed together with the navy’s admiral.

「What about the movement of the Heavy Knights of Waldrind? 」

「It looks like they have not left the camp yet. 」

Helga Piarosa, who specialized in Life Magic, made her report.

「It is strange that they did not show any signs of movement in response to Dartania’s arrival. 」
Villar folded his arms in front of his chest and tapped his right index finger on his left elbow rhythmically.

「Even so, I did not think that Lord Milza would go as far as to become Artuk’s enemy… 」

Laura said with a pale expression on her face.

「Lord Milza is widely known for having a violent temper, but he is not someone who would go and act based on his emotions alone. If he decided to join the Factory Alliance, then it simply means that he has given up on me now, because he deemed that if he remains on my side of the power equation, there would be no chances for him to be a part of the unification of the continent. 」

Villar smiled at himself.

He has known about Milza Kuches ever since he was a boy. In the past, when he was made to make a courtesy visit to Dartania to meet with the Viceroy of Dartania, Sayid, he was introduced to the prince.
He had a keen eye, and he looked at him as if he had murderous intentions towards him, and these two qualities of his are the ones that he remembered as clearly as if that happened just yesterday. Apparently, he was thought to be a feeble Lord, but even so, he still ended up challenging Vilar to a sword fighting duel, and after Vilar managed to achieve a narrow victory against him, Milza’s demeanor towards Vilar changed.

Ever since then, he often visited Artuk, learned various forms of martial arts from Vilar, and eventually decided that he was going to travel around the continent for further training.

Essentially, to Vilar, it could be said that Milza was something akin to a younger brother.

「It is rumored that Lord Milza was the one who killed his father Sayid, and brought all the tribes who refused to follow him to their knees, which made this military expedition of his that we are seeing now possible. 」

Margret said with a stern expression.

「What about your tribe? 」

「It was completely destroyed. The temple of the Fire Cult was razed to the ground, and the torch itself was lost and nobody knows what happened to it. 」

「Lord Milza is said to have always hated everything related to the matters of faith and religion, and according to some people that is because of the weakness of his own heart. 」

「The way I see it, it sounds like he has been possessed by something. But even if he managed to unify the continent under his rule right now, what do you think is going to happen from now on? What is he planning to do? 」

「Well… 」

Villar said, but he did not know which words he should choose to follow.

Milza seems to have witnessed a lot of things during his travels across the continent, and not necessarily the good ones. As a result, the people who were the main target of his wrath and ire were the lazy Lords who willingly neglected their duties towards their countries and its people in favor of their own personal gain.

「I do not know what kind of deal Lord Milza made with the Factory Alliance, but in any case, he has chosen to become Marine’s sword. This is not an ideal turn of events for us, since I did not want him to turn into Artuk’s enemy if possible. 」

「So, what do you want us to do now? 」

Margaret asked while staring at Villar.

「We should reissue the warnings for the Lords of the countries that are bordering the Factory Alliance, telling them that there is a very high probability that the enemy forces might be trying to invade them. We should also ask the Lords of Regalia, Haman, Kirchs and Mansur to come and help us with the defense of this castle. And as for Selvis and Falvis ruled over by Lord Lassic… 」

Villar cut off his words there and turned to Laura, his Head Mage.

「What should I tell him? 」

Laura immediately grabbed her magic wand and asked Vilar.

「Tell him that he is free to invade Ozer. He was always feeling bad about only being attacked and constantly defending his border without a chance to attack, so tell him that this time he can rampage to his heart’s content. 」

「As you wish! 」

Then Laura uses the magic wand to contact the contracted Mage of each country that was bordering the Factory Alliance and passed Vilar’s words on to them.

「I am sorry for being so intrusive. 」

After waiting for Laura to finish contacting everyone that needed to be informed about the current situation, Margret apologized to her, since she had no right to be so bossy with Laura and the other Mages of Artuk since she had already stopped being Vilar’s contracted Mage and had given up her magic wand.

「No, it is really reassuring to have you back here with us, Lady Margaret. Because no matter what you might be thinking about it, this time the battle is definitely going to be a tough one. 」

Laura hurriedly replied.

Since she became Vilar’s contracted Mage, she knew that sooner or later she would have to one day be deployed onto the battlefield. Even back during her days as a student at the Magic University, the Mages who studied there were required to take classes which were meant to prepare them for takin part in real battle as much as possible. However, everyone knows that there is always a huge difference between training and actual combat, and she could already feel her chest tightening with anxiety and her hands sweating with tension.

(If Siluca was here, she would probably be unconcerned.)

She has stood on the battlefield many times after all. She has killed enemies with her magic, and she has been nearly killed on more than one occasion, and yet despite all that, she did not seem to be too scared of fighting. Rather than that, she used to tell the other Mages with a straight face that she was more afraid that her plans would not work instead of that she could die.

Right now, in this moment, Laura wished with all of her heart for Siluca to be here with them.

But that was not going to happen, because after Siluca told Vilar a bit too much than she should have after she was displeased with his lack of action against the Factory Alliance, he sent her away back to Theo’s territory in The Forrest of Eternal Darkness, and he has not summoned her back from there for several months now.

(This is my chance to prove that I am a better Mage than her, at the very least!)

Laura stretched her back in order to encourage herself and stares at the battlefield of the sea that was sprawling out before all of them. There, the two fleets were neatly lined up, slowly closing the distance between each other.

Riding on the wind which was blowing from the land, six large sailing ships, the main force of the Artuk’s navy, were far ahead of the fleet of the Factory Alliance. Archers were lined up on the ships of both sides, and they also had heavy crossbows installed on the decks.

「Are the large ships not sticking out too much? We will be surrounded at this rate. 」