Shouts and screams erupted from inside the fortress.
They were the voices of allies — soldiers of the Kingdom of Aiwood.
"Enemy!"
"The foreign tribes have breached the interior of the fortress!"
"Close the gate! If this keeps up— gaaaahhhhh!?"
"Oooooooooh!"
Foreign tribes pouring into the fortress's interior.
One hundred, two hundred… the number of enemies inside kept swelling.
The foreign tribes moved with startling speed. They displayed the kind of agility that magicians could only achieve through body reinforcement, all without any magic, slipping into the fortress at terrifying velocity.
"This is… bad. At this rate, the fortress will fall!"
Atop the ramparts, Rest gritted his teeth and shouted.
If nothing changed, the interior of the fortress would be completely overrun.
The allied soldiers tried to shut the gate, but the foreign tribes' interference kept thwarting them.
Rest quickly cast a spell to seal the gate.
"[Earth Wall]!"
An earthen wall sprang up at the fortress entrance.
The open gate was sealed, halting the enemy advance — but the foreign tribes immediately began trying to break through the wall.
"Make it thicker… that's it — drop some large boulders or something…!"
If he conjured rocks with magic, he could crush the foreign tribes at the gate and seal it at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
Rest moved to cast the spell right away, but that was when a cold killing intent grazed the back of his neck.
"…!?"
"Hah!"
A sharp blade swung down — aimed straight at Rest's neck.
Rest reinforced his body with magic and leaped backward.
He landed at a safe distance and spun around. Where he had stood moments before stood a figure wielding a blunt-edged blade.
(A human… no, are they really human?)
A small shadow shrouded in a deep hood. By build, they looked like a boy, but whether they were truly human was uncertain.
They could well be a foreign tribesman in disguise.
"That was close… Who are you?"
"Die… curse caster…!"
"…!?"
The figure kicked off the floor and lunged, blade in hand.
Fast. Without any visible use of magic, they moved as though they had cast body reinforcement and acceleration.
"[Super Acceleration]!"
Rest evaded the blade using a higher-tier enhancement spell.
At the same time, he launched an offensive spell. Several thunder spheres materialized around him and swarmed toward the intruder.
"[Thunder Ball]!"
"Tch…!"
Yet the figure twisted their body and dodged every sphere.
It shouldn't have been possible to evade at that timing — their dynamic vision and physical flexibility were astonishing.
"Die…!"
"Ugh…!"
Having dodged the magic, the hooded figure slashed again.
Rest tried to leap back once more, but behind him was a wall. Before he knew it, he had been cornered.
He was still shaken from having every thunder sphere dodged — and now it was too late to conjure a wall for defense.
"There's no other way…!"
Rest steeled himself and stepped forward into the blade instead.
"Wha—!?"
"Argh…!"
He caught the blade on his forearm.
The razor-sharp tip bit deep into his arm.
Still, as long as the blow did not land on a vital point, healing magic could fix it.
Rest endured the pain and seized the hand gripping the blade.
"[Thunder Palm]!"
"Guaaaahhhhh…!?"
A fierce jolt of electricity surged through the figure's body, making it convulse violently.
Strength drained from the hand clutching the blade, and the figure toppled backward onto the ground.
"Ah… gk…"
"Ow, that smarts… It'd be nice if magic could eliminate pain too."
Rest pulled the blade from his arm and healed the wound.
With infinite mana, he could even regrow a severed limb. The wound sealed shut in no time.
"Sorry about that… Looks like the one who died was you."
And then — he conjured a blade of wind and moved to sever the curse caster's head.
"…nngh…"
"Hm?"
But he stopped just before the wind blade could strike.
The hood that had covered the fallen figure's face slipped loose.
Beneath the yellowish fabric emerged the innocent face of a young boy. A horn protruded from his forehead, confirming what Rest had suspected — he was indeed a foreign tribesman.
"A child…?"
By Japanese standards, he would have been about elementary school age.
Rest hesitated to deliver the killing blow.
On a battlefield there were no adults or children. He had thought himself prepared for that — but actually seeing a child soldier before his eyes shook his resolve.
"You… foreign tribes scum!"
"Medic! Get a medic!"
While Rest was still wavering, the situation around him continued to deteriorate.
The earth wall he had created was breached, and enemy reinforcements poured into the fortress interior.
"There's no choice…"
Rest restrained the foreign tribes boy with magic.
He bound him with earthen ropes, wrapped around multiple times. No matter how enhanced the boy's physical abilities were, he would not be escaping from that.
"First, seal the gate — [Earth Ball]!"
A sphere of earth appeared in the air. Just one.
But that sphere swelled rapidly, eventually transforming into a massive block roughly ten meters in diameter.
"Crush them."
"Gaaaah!"
He dropped the boulder of earth — onto the outside of the gate.
The foreign tribesmen who had been breaking through the earth wall to invade were crushed beneath it, letting out muffled screams.
The moment it hit the ground, the earth sphere crumbled into a small mountain that sealed the gate shut.
"That does it — now all that's left is to eliminate the enemies inside the fortress…!"
Rest shifted his focus to the interior of the fortress and joined the fray to support the allied soldiers.