Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Year 1, Day 5 (Part 1): Battle on the Obsidian Barrier

The rest of the fourth day was nothing exciting. Sara still barely helped with constructing things, but I could barely even blame her for that. No matter what we did, everything was going to end up getting constructed at the same rate. I just felt bad about sitting around doing nothing while others did the labor, even if my labor had literally zero impact.

Aside from that, I gave our units their next orders. The southern unit was to return to our territory while the northern unit kept on exploring.

My headache ended up growing worse throughout the day, which was unfortunate since I thought I was getting over my withdrawal symptoms. By the end of the day, I felt worse than I did the first day without my meds.

And the fifth day didn’t have a kind start for me, either.

“Clay!” Enna shouted.

Being woken up like that wasn’t something I was used to, so I shot up in an instant which made my head feel like somebody was driving a spike through it. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“There’s a battle!”

“Between who? What?” I was still out of it.

“Our unit on the return back!”

My first thought was that somebody in the camp was fighting somebody else. I didn’t think she meant that there was an actual, serious battle.

I got up from the bed and called on the system to check and see what was happening.

“Alright, well, how do I resolve a battle?” I asked.

“Out here,” Sara said, standing at the tent’s entrance.

My head was killing me, I had to go outside, and there was a battle I was in no way prepared for.

The day was off to a start that made the Soviet Union look good in comparison.

And that should have been impossible.

Outside, everybody was gathered together around the camp center where a large window was on display. It looked like some sort of hologram that showed a close overview of where the battle was. It was a zoomed in map of the obsidian barrier with a lot more specific details added to it.

“Why’s retreat unavailable?” I asked.

“If they already spent half of their movements points for the day, which they have, retreat is not an option,” Sara explained. “Ambushed units cannot retreat either, and that is also the case.”

“Do we have any idea what we’re fighting?”

“No. An ambush hides that information.”

“If—if I may,” Enna spoke up, “the battle is happening near that black crabs feature. Perhaps it is those?”

“Good point,” I said. “I hope you’re wrong, but you’re probably not.”

From what I recalled of the crab feature, the description made them sound like serious threats. Crabs the size of men with obsidian shells. All we had were spearmen who had basic, stone spears.

If they had to go up against crabs with shells made out of obsidian, I didn’t have faith in the outcome.

“Is it possible to retreat immediately after getting into a battle?” I asked.

“If you want to look like a coward and lose all of your involved units at the same time, yes,” Sara said.

“Then that’s not an option.” The time was ticking down on the phase’s remaining time. “And what happens if we surrender?” I didn't want to lose our unit if possible.

“Then they die, most likely. It depends on who you surrender to. Best case scenario, they are taken captive and turned into slaves. Worst case scenario, they are killed for enjoyment.”

“Great.”

There was nothing to choose other than the manual battle option. Well, the automatic battle option was technically available and one that I wouldn’t feel pathetic for choosing, but I knew that manually fighting battles in games was always the best choice.

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So, I chose it. The window then changed to let me place our only unit down within the allowed zone.

I placed our spearmen unit near the back of the allowed area, almost all the way to the right. They were only a single tile away from the battlefield’s border.

“Keep in mind that ambushers are allowed a much greater spawning area,” Sara said, “and may place their units nearly anywhere on the map rather than only in a designated area like the defender.”

“I don’t think that’s going to matter this time,” I replied.

“Likely not.”

I couldn’t help but to feel nervous. Demotivated. I knew our chances were probably impossibly low and I had no idea how to even them out.

Enna must have been able to tell how I felt since she was the one who wrapped her arm around my waist for once. That helped, but it didn’t get rid of the sinking feeling in my gut as I chose to begin the battle.

I could still interact with the unit even after the battle began. Once I selected them, I could order them to move, defend, or retreat. They were a starting unit, so I wasn’t surprised when they didn’t exactly have a lot of options.

I set them to defend, causing the assortment of demons wielding spears to line up side by side with their spears facing forward.

Little did I know that our chances of winning were even smaller than I feared.

The ground beneath the spearmen erupted with great force, sending those in the unit flying in multiple directions as ten crabs as dark as the obsidian they burst out of swarmed from the ground underneath them. Each of the crabs was larger than any of the demons in the unit. Their claws alone were as big as some of their bodies, and they used said claws to utterly annihilate our unit.

One of the spearmen had his body snapped in half by a claw.

Another spearmen was pinned down a different crab and devoured alive.

There was one crab that bashed its claw into a demon who failed to penetrate its shell with his spear, and the demon was instantly knocked out with a broken body that wouldn’t be standing anytime soon.

We not only watched as the spearmen were slaughtered one by one, but we listened to their screams of fear and pain. We heard their bodies break. We heard the horrifying sounds of men and women being devoured alive.

By the time that the spearmen’s morale broke, there were so few of them left that the surprisingly agile crabs were able to wipe them out before they could reach the border of the battlefield.

It was a total loss.

Not even one of the crabs were defeated. The most damage that one of the crabs suffered was receiving a small crack in its shell.

The battle was over before it ever got to begin.

Everything I talked about winning and making sure we all got to make it out alive was already disproven, and I could feel the way that the surrounding demons were looking at me.

My words might have built them up, but those very same words were worthless if there was nothing to support them.

“What happens now?” I asked Sara. “The ones who died—did they feel pain?”

“Excruciating amounts of it, I am sure,” Sara said. “But they are not dead. They will return to Hell with whole bodies, suffering only whatever mental trauma they may have just acquired.”

“So… they’re alive. They’re safe. They died, but not really.”

“For the most part. But given how you have been acting, I would not be surprised if my father punishes them to make a point.”

“Is that something he would do?”

“Absolutely. If he punishes them to show them that their actions will not be tolerated just because they did it here rather than in Hell, then those who come after will be less likely to follow in their insubordination.”

“Tell me straight. Do you think that he’s going to kill them? Permanently kill them?”

“Some of them, at least, yes.”

I felt my anxiety flood my every being worse than ever before. There was a real chance that some of the demons might be executed upon their return, and that would be my fault. Not only did we lose the battle which meant my words became meaningless to those who I assured everything would work out, but I might be responsible for the executions of those we lost.

I needed to be alone. I felt like I was about to have a mental breakdown and didn’t want any of them to see me like that. I couldn’t even force myself to act confident like usual. That was why I forced myself away from the crowd and retreated to my tent, which only made me feel even worse, but at least nobody else would see me like that.

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