On Gramps's orders, I made my way to the North Gate.
The zombies that had launched their surprise attack numbered—by my best estimate—over five thousand, and they were still growing. They must have circled around the village to get here.
I regretted not having used Detection, but I decided it wasn't fatal yet and opened fire.
"Firestorm!"
Before the zombies could notice me, I unleashed Firestorm three times, engulfing those near the front of the horde in a sea of flame.
But the zombies in the rear pressed forward as though the wall of fire didn't even exist. Before long, the flames themselves were smothered and snuffed out by the sheer mass of bodies behind them.
"What a crazy way to fight," someone muttered under their breath.
It certainly was crazy, but the idea of overwhelming a small defensive force with sheer numbers—it was actually an effective tactic against us right now. Whether the zombies were capable of that kind of thinking was another matter entirely.
"I'm here to help, on Gramps's orders!"
"You're a lifesaver."
We exchanged a few brief words and then resumed firing off spell after spell.
"Earth Needle! Fireball! Air Cutter!"
Multiple elemental spells carved through the enemy's ranks, thinning them out. But zombies kept surging up, wave after wave, from behind.
"This is endless. And I'm worried about the West Gate too… Guess I'll just have to go for it—try 'that.'"
I muttered to myself and then fired ten Firestorms straight into the center of the horde. Roughly two thousand caught in the blast were incinerated, but plenty of zombies still remained.
Even at a distance of five hundred meters, the scorching heat wave reached all the way to the fortress.
"Tenma! Stop throwing away your Magic Power for nothing! Calm down!"
The mage who had caught up to me issued a warning, but I ignored him.
"Everyone, get low or head below ground! Move—now!"
I shouted out orders at the top of my lungs. At first, everyone was caught off guard, but the moment I cast a high-powered spell, the mages who caught on immediately relayed the message to everyone and sprang into action. Watching that out of the corner of my eye, I began chanting a spell.
"Tornado."
It wasn't a particularly rare spell. If anything, it was considerably more powerful than the standard version, but even so, it was questionable whether it could take down around a hundred zombies in a single hit... under normal circumstances, that is.
In the past, during the Great Kanto Earthquake, of approximately 105,000 casualties, around 40,000 are said to have perished all at once due to a certain
phenomenon.
—or so it is said.
It is said that this phenomenon occurs at the moment when massive quantities of heated air surge upward all at once as a result of large-scale fires.
It is called a "fire whirl"—a disaster that grows by drawing in the surrounding air, and the temperature of this heat-bearing tornado is reported to exceed 1,000 degrees Celsius.
Tenma had managed to reproduce that natural disaster using magic.
However, this was also something of a gamble. After all, even in his previous life, the mechanism behind how fire whirls form had never been fully understood.
Having won his gamble, Tenma
Fire Whirl
slowly advanced it toward the direction the zombies were pouring in from.
The zombies tried to escape the whirlwind, but in the end they were sucked in—burned, torn apart, and reduced to dust. Within minutes, the horde of zombies heading for the north gate was nearly annihilated. Having witnessed this, Tenma began weakening the fire tornado with his Magic Power.
"Incredible! The zombies are gone!"
"Serves them right!"
"All that's left are the stragglers!"
Cheers erupted from the north gate's defense force as they finished off the survivors. Tenma breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
(Glad that worked out. The effect is impressive, but it's hard to use—if I lose control, it could easily come this way, and it takes Magic Power to dispel it too. I'll need to be careful about the location.)
Thinking that, he downed three potions in one go.
"Tenma, sorry, but could you hurry up and eat this, then head to the west gate?"
One of the defense force members said that, handing him water and a sandwich that had just been distributed.
"Got it."
He swallowed the sandwich, washing it down with water as he took off for the west gate, his stomach sloshing noisily with water and potions.
The sight he saw at the west gate was pretty much the same as the north gate.
To be precise, there seemed to be more zombies here than at the north gate, but the mages were working harder to compensate, so the zombie advance had been held in check.
Tenma spotted Uncle Mark, who was directing the defense, and called out to him.
"It's Tenma. I'm here as backup."
"Tenma, great timing... By the way, that pillar of fire earlier—was that you?"
"Yes, it's my magic."
When Tenma answered, Uncle Mark looked surprised for a moment, but quickly asked:
"Could you do the same thing here?"
Tenma looked at the zombies and replied:
"I can. But I'll need the mages who are able to use magic to cooperate."
He asked the mages to fire ten fireballs each around the center of the zombie horde, while he himself unleashed five Fire Storms.
"Everyone, take cover below!"
He gave the order and chanted 'Tornado', just as he had at the north gate.
Once again, a 'Fire Tornado' descended upon the horde, swallowing up most of the zombies. By the time it dissipated, the entire horde had been wiped out.
The defense force let out cries of jubilation at the sight and moved in to finish off any stragglers.
While watching them, Tenma was about to head east to report when he sensed a vicious, sinister aura from the forest beyond the south gate. In the next instant, a thin black beam of light pierced through the south gate.
The beam reached nearly to the center of the fortress, and screams erupted from all around.
The south gate had been blown apart along with sections of the surrounding wall, and it appeared several members of the defense force had taken a direct hit.
"Mom! Dad!"
After freezing for a few seconds, I cried out, and praying for both their safety, I rushed toward the south gate.
I included a description of a 'fire tornado' in the story, but since I added my own interpretation to what I had researched, it may not be entirely accurate.
So please just think of it as a magical phenomenon similar to a 'fire tornado.'
That said, it does seem to be true that the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed nearly forty thousand lives.