——Baim had neither king nor nobles.
It was a city of merchants and adventurers, a city that had kept on growing. That was why traces of the old walls still remained where they once stood.
The residents of Baim had abandoned the outer districts and retreated inward. At the harbor, merchants could be seen loading their fortunes onto their own ships and fleeing.
At the harbor, crowds of people were screaming for passage aboard ships, witnessing the atrocities committed by Banseim's soldiers.
"Get us on board too!"
"This is my ship! Set sail now!"
"You heartless bastard!"
The harbor descended into chaos as ship after ship departed. Among them were vessels that listed and capsized under the weight of their overloaded cargo. In the congested harbor, some ships toppled and dragged others down with them.
Baim, caught in utter chaos, had become a vision of hell itself ——.
——Having stepped out of the Eastern Branch Guild, Tanya donned her equipment and engaged the Banseim soldiers who had invaded Baim.
Soldiers armed with spears and shields, backed by archers, waited for Tanya. Their faces were filled with fear.
"T-Thi-this woman!!"
These were not troops patrolling the main roads — they were squads moving to plunder. They were few in number and, by Tanya's standards, hardly formidable.
"Naive."
She scaled the side of a building vertically, dodged their arrows, and landed right in the center of their cluster. Having intentionally surrounded herself, Tanya placed her hands on the ground.
"Wh-what is this?!"
"M-My feet — they're floating!"
As the soldiers rose into the air, they thrashed their legs wildly. Unable to gain any footing, they spun around helplessly in midair.
One by one, Tanya drew the short sword at her waist and slashed through their necks. The squad of over a dozen — knights and soldiers alike — had their throats cut and were annihilated. Once every last one had stopped moving, their bodies fell to the ground.
Tanya, wearing her mask, surveyed her surroundings. Terrified residents of Baim watched her from the alleys where they'd taken refuge.
"Get out of here immediately. Head through this street toward the center of Baim."
That was all she said before she took off again, running along the walls of buildings and climbing to the rooftops. All around, adventurers and soldiers were fighting. But their resistance was uncoordinated. Fighting within Baim itself was something they hadn't anticipated.
Tanya scanned her surroundings and, spotting the Banseim soldiers who had pushed through the fighting adventurers, cut them down. She caught glimpses of other Sweepers fighting as well, but their inexperience—and the loss of their strongest members to Lyle's group—was taking its toll.
"Either way, they can't turn this around."
Baim was full of individuals who were exceptional by any standard—but this wasn't the kind of situation individual skill could resolve. They simply knew too little about war.
At this point, even surrender was on the table as a negotiating option. But Tanya narrowed her eyes.
The heads of Baim's merchants and their bodyguards who had been sent to negotiate were displayed openly in the streets. It was Banseim's declaration: there would be no negotiations.
"This is… this is monstrous—!"
The moment Tanya moved from her position, arrows buried themselves where she had been standing. Several had been loosed simultaneously, all of them driven deep into the building.
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, Banseim knights were closing in.
"There she is—the one they call a Sweeper."
"She'd make a fine trophy, wouldn't she?"
"I'll cover you. It'll be a pain if the minor lords get devoured. Let's crush her quick."
The trio looked at Tanya as though she were nothing more than prey—clearly a different caliber from any enemy she'd faced so far. Facing three knights who possessed Skills, Tanya sprinted forward, drew a knife from her waist, and hurled it.
One of them deflected the knife with his sword—but the sword shattered to pieces. The knight immediately abandoned what remained of the blade and leaped back as the knife punched clean through the rooftop and fell through.
"That was terrifyingly heavy. Is that her Skill? These people really do have the strangest abilities."
A knight drew his backup short sword. Another nocked an arrow. Behind her mask, Tanya steeled herself.
"I won't let any more Skill users get past me."
The three knights laughed at Tanya's words. Her plan had been to pounce the moment they left an opening.
"Those people from Baim really are something, aren't they? I mean, sure, we're Skill users, but... it's not like we're anything all that special."
Tanya stepped forward, her gaze fixed on the knights before her.
A Skill that manipulated gravity—astonished by the sudden increase in Tanya's speed as her weight lessened, the knight failed to guard against the knife Tanya had made heavy, and was cut down, sword and all.
She drew a small pouch containing a lump of iron from inside her coat and swung it upward. She threw it directly above the archer knight, and as the lump rapidly gained weight, it rained down upon him.
Then, the knight with the short sword slashed at Tanya.
"You're pretty strong, aren't you?"
"Tch. You're awfully calm, even with your allies being taken out."
Her opponent unleashed a flurry of blows, but Tanya parried them all.
"Allies? Don't be ridiculous. Those guys were a nuisance to me too. A knight who relied on an archer, a cocky little brat... they were just in my way."
The knight's power was increasing, and no matter how much weight Tanya added to her knife, he batted the attacks aside. The short sword sliced through Tanya's mask.
"Oh? What's this? You've got quite the cute face under there."
However, Tanya planted a kick in the knight's midsection. He'd felt secure in his armor, but Tanya's kick pierced straight through it, sinking deep into his flesh.
As her opponent coughed up blood and was sent flying, Tanya sank to the ground. She scanned her surroundings, checking that no other enemies remained.
"I can't keep this up for too long."
With a frustrated mutter, she began to move toward the Guild.
South Baim.
In my office there, I was listening to a report from Monica as I worked on reorganizing units and tasks. Novem had also come to the room; the situation had reached a critical point.
"Merchants have already started fleeing from Baim. They've managed to cross the walls and are now holed up inside the walls that once protected the now-decorative city center. A street battle is raging, and both Banseim and Baim have taken considerable damage."
The armies that had clashed numbered nearly four hundred thousand combined. Of course, in terms of pure fighting strength, it was probably fewer. Still, the sight of both sides mired in a quagmire of a battle was enough to make one sigh.
"...Are they really intent on wiping everyone out? It seems Baim hasn't decided on a policy—whether to resist or flee."
It wasn't exactly stalling to buy time for an escape. They fought because the enemy was coming. Surrender wouldn't be forgiven either. It was that kind of situation that had turned Baim's soldiers into men prepared to die.
Banseim wouldn't come out unscathed either.
Monica looked at me with a serious expression.
"The leadership of Baim doesn't seem capable of fulfilling their role. They were supposed to be the ones brought to their knees, but Baim's walls were breached before our victory report even arrived, and now they're in a state of chaos."
Baim was more fragile than I had imagined. Depending on how you played it, they might have even been able to drive Banseim away. They had that much military strength, but it was a lesson in just how quickly things could crumble when the top was weak.
The Third Generation, inside the Jewel, was smiling faintly.
"A scorched-earth strategy, I suppose. If they'd spent a few months evacuating Baim's citizens somewhere, taking all their food and wealth with them... Sure, it would have taken years afterward—no, five years, ten years—to get back to normal. But they could have rebuilt. Banseim has supply problems and is barely holding together by pillaging Baim. If they'd just fled and hidden the adventurers somewhere in a Dungeon, now *that* would have been interesting."
Banseim would fail to achieve its objectives, its fighting strength would deteriorate from food shortages, and it would lose control. It was indeed an effective strategy. The Seventh Generation nodded in agreement as well.
"Well, 'if' and 'but' don't really apply, do they? If it were us, we would have either created conditions to cooperate with the surrounding regions or prepared to hold out on our own. Baim chose not to rely on anyone else while apparently not giving any thought to defense at all. It's just... baffling."
The Third Generation chimed in on the Seventh Generation's point.
"Although... we were the ones who made it so they couldn't get that cooperation from their neighbors, weren't we?"
He said that with a laugh.
Novem looked at me.
"Lord Lyle, what will you do? Even if we abandon Baim now, Banseim's forces could eventually turn toward South Baim."
It all came down to where to fight. Even if we hunkered down in South Baim, the difference in numbers would be devastating. I certainly couldn't claim we'd win against Banseim's army with a small force.
I looked at Monica.
"You put out a call for volunteers in the surrounding areas. How many came forward?"
Monica told me without changing her expression.
"Perhaps because they were so terrified, not many people volunteered. We didn't even reach a thousand."
It wasn't enough to fill the holes left by the soldiers lost fighting Bread and his forces.
"Once the forces are reorganized, I'll send them toward Baim. But there's a place I need to stop by first. I'll dispatch a separate unit ahead of the main body. It'd be best if we could have them fight under my command."
I looked down.
I wondered how many more mountains of corpses I'd have to pile up before the message reached Ceres.
Novem turned to look at me.
"What will you do, Lord Lyle?"
I'd stick to the original plan. The original plan... was to head for Redant Fortress.
"The schedule's been thrown off a bit, but preparations are still in place. I'll take the nobles who cooperated with us and their soldiers, and break into Redant Fortress."
——Several ships arrived at the port of Baim, where the fighting continued without end.
The surroundings were devoid of human presence, strewn with debris and destruction, and when Vera saw how it looked, she could hardly believe this was once the port of Baim.
"So it's come to this..."
Standing beside Vera, watching the soldiers who had come up onto the deck, was Novem. The soldiers — the Valkyries — had slight differences in appearance. Still, they all wore the same blue armor.
Vera felt a complicated mix of emotions gazing at the Valkyries, born from the very Monsters that had once tormented her.
"I can't believe that Trident Sea Serpent ended up looking like this. These children are strong, I'm sure, but are they strong enough to push back Banseim?"
Novem offered Vera a gentle smile.
"That would be difficult. In equal numbers, we'd have no problem, and we could even fight against several times our number. But against hundreds of thousands... it simply wouldn't be a battle. However..."
Among the Valkyries, Novem had brought along Number Three, who was particularly capable. However, Number Three wore a deeply unhappy expression.
"Stop messing with me. Why am I the only one stuck here... I wanted to go with Master to Redant Fortress. If anything, I should be carrying Master on my back and escorting her there. Ugh, I've lost all motivation."
When Vera saw Number Three sitting there hugging her knees in a slump, her head started to ache.
"She really is the most capable one, isn't she?"
Novem let out a bitter smile.
""""Yes. There's no question about that. Besides, the Banseim soldiers who infiltrated Baim can't coordinate their actions. If we have to choose between fighting ten thousand at once or fighting a hundred a hundred times, we won't lose."
Aria had also come out onto the ship. She was ready, clad in her armor.
"Whoa, smoke is rising everywhere. So, we just go around helping Baim's soldiers like normal, right?"
Miranda appeared behind Aria as well.
"Don't be so casual about it. We have to show them we're on their side first. Shouldn't we head to the Eastern Branch? We need to explain the situation there and make sure the Baim soldiers don't attack us."
The reinforcements brought by several ships numbered fewer than a thousand.
But the objective was to aid Baim and buy time until Lyle arrived with the main force.
Miranda brushed her hair back with an exasperated look, glaring at Baim.
"They could've held out a little longer, you know. Thanks to them, we barely got any rest."
Baim had crumbled faster than expected, which forced Lyle's side to organize and dispatch auxiliary units as well. They were supposed to have fought a much more depleted Banseim.
Vera looked at those assembled faces and spoke.
"The ship will return to South Baim as planned. And don't lose before Lyle gets there."
At Vera's words, Novem cracked a small smile.
"What?"
"It's nothing. I just thought Lord Lyle had found a good person, that's all. We'll be fine over here, and Lyle's side has no issues either. Right now—"
Right now, Lyle and the others were—
I was wearing elite unit armor, posing as a wounded soldier, infiltrating Redant Fortress.
Looking around, soldiers disguised as wounded just like me raised their heads.
"The baron did well. Actually, they acted as if they expected the elite unit to lose... Did some of the defeated troops make it back first?"
Standing up, I reached for the weapon I'd brought with me as Baldoa kept watch on the surroundings.
"You're way too calm, Lord Lyle. We're deep in enemy territory, you know. And we don't even have five hundred men."
We had infiltrated Redant Fortress by staging a retreat from our supposed defeat. Baldoa was on edge.
Maxim, who had slipped in the same way, gave Baldoa a pat on the shoulder.
"Don't be so nervous. When it comes to this kind of thing, Lord Lyle is remarkably capable. I'm truly glad we didn't end up on his bad side."
He was smiling, but I couldn't exactly take that assessment at face value. Still, I drew my sword and glanced toward the entrance.
"Ah, sorry about that. It seems we may have been read after all."
Gathered before the door were armed soldiers from Banseim.
Maxim seized his spear, and Baldoa drew his sword. As the soldiers we'd brought along took up their weapons, the door swung open.
"...I've been waiting for you, Lyle Walt. Or should I say 'my lord'? Perhaps 'sir' would be more fitting?"
The man who entered the room unarmed was General Broa, the one who'd been saddled with overseeing Redant Fortress.
"Well now, this is quite the coincidence — the very person I'd been hoping to run into has come all the way out to greet me."
Inside the Jewel, the Third Generation was impressed.
"Oh my, what a quick thinker. Or did we let our guard down? This is problematic — it means we'll have no choice but to resort to force."
With my current power, I could probably fight my way out of this situation. But the other man had come unarmed, shrugging his shoulders.
"Sorry about this. I hate to interrupt when you're clearly ready for a fight, but... I'd like to surrender. Your troops are already outside, aren't they?"
I turned my gaze toward the armed men on the other side of the door. General Broa ran a hand through his hair and gestured for them to stand down.
"My apologies. They simply wouldn't take no for an answer when it came to following me. Well, if you accept our surrender, the bulk of the fortress's forces will fall under your command, Lord Lyle."
"The bulk?"
"Well... you see, there's a trust issue. We had to station some overseers as well. It took quite some effort to restrain them."
He was laughing it off, but this man... The Third Generation, on the other hand, seemed thoroughly entertained.
"Oh, he's pitching himself to me. Or rather, does he have an accurate read on his own situation?"
I sheathed my sword and looked at General Broa.
"You'd betray Banseim and come under my command?"
General Broa scratched his cheek with a finger.
"That's what you wanted, isn't it? I mean, you've been running around with the Baroness pulling strings and all. I'm genuinely sorry, but I've got nowhere left to run. Winning doesn't work, losing doesn't work — when that's the case, the only move left is the third option."
Even if General Broa had beaten me, he'd have had no future. If he lost, he'd obviously have no future either. Cornered like that, surrendering to me was the only play.
"...Very well. I'll accept. But I'm going to put you to work right away."
At my words, General Broa nodded.
"Sure. You're going to announce the fall of Redant Fortress, I take it?"
——Being told what I was going to do before I could say it myself left me with a faint taste of defeat.