Chapter 133: Chapter 128: The Battle Begins

Lia stared at the edge of the forest apprehensively. Beyond the forest was the clearing that marked the official border of Aura and the Sapphire Empire, where the coalition’s armies were camped out. By this point it was almost certain that the army knew they were coming, and would be prepared to meet them in battle.

“I…don’t know if I’m ready for this, Rose.” Lia admitted. “It’s one thing to talk about war, and another thing to actually be…fighting.”

“I can’t say I know what you feel like, the Urge didn’t give me that luxury, but I can assure you that it’ll be okay.” Rose said soothingly. “If I didn’t think we could win, I wouldn’t have gone for this strategy. And Amelia and I will be keeping an eye on you, if it gets too dangerous, we’ll send you home.”

“I know, it’s just…people are going to die today, and it feels…surreal. Like some of the people I’m seeing right now won’t be here later.”

Rose sighed. “That is, unfortunately, how it goes in war. It may not seem like it at the moment, but I can assure you that in the end this war will save far more lives than it takes. When we win it’ll end all war, and that makes it worth it. Our soldiers fighting today know that, and they know that if they die, they die heroes. Dying isn’t a pleasant prospect, but there are much worse things to die for than this.”

There was a prolonged silence before Lia spoke again. “So…when do we attack?”

“As soon as the rest of our forces are in position.” Rose replied.

“But what if they try and set the forest on fire or something?” Lia asked.

“Then they won’t get very far.” Amelia responded. “If they try to use magic, then me and a bunch of our other mages are on standby. If they don’t…well, it’s still basically the same for us.”

It took ten minutes for the rest of the army to get in place, and then Amelia gave a telepathic signal to the army. Almost as one, they started to move, making their way out of the forest to meet the enemy. Rose stretched a little, then stood. “Alright, it’s showtime.” She said. “I’m going to be relaying instructions to the army via Amelia until an enemy comes out that needs our attention. Lia, you keep an eye on the battlefield and let me know if I miss anything.”

“But I can’t really see through the trees.” Lia protested. “I can barely catch glimpses of the army.”

“Oh, right, I forgot. Um…”

“Just watch using one of our birds.” Amelia suggested. “You have that Skill that lets you borrow the sight of a member of the swarm, you can use that and we’ll keep an eye on your body to make sure it’s safe. And, actually, that’s probably the best way we have of surveying the battlefield, if you just narrate what you see out loud, we can react accordingly.”

“That’s right, thanks for reminding me.” Lia said. “I’ll get on that.”

Lia sent her mind out to one of their scout birds, and began to give it instructions whilst she looked through its eyes. She took a second to adjust to suddenly having a literal bird’s-eye view of the area, then began to relay everything she saw to Amelia and Rose. The swarm was currently pouring out of the forest, and the coalition’s army was opening fire on them with arrows and spells.

And she did well up until the moment when the bird she was using as her eyes passed over one of the areas where the opposing army’s siege mages had blasted some of the swarm, and she was able to make out a blackened body of a human-looking woman. It was at that moment that she truly began to realize the gravity of what was happening; people were dying, for her.

Or…for the swarm, but at the end of the day she was the one who had made it known that there would be no lasting peace. She withdrew her vision, stumbling over to one of the nearby trees before violently emptying her stomach of its contents.

“Lia!” Amelia cried out, rushing over to her. “Are you alright? Did someone hit you with a spell?”

“F-fine.” Lia croaked. “I…I’ve never actually seen a person’s corpse before. Monsters are one thing, but…I realized that it’s my fault she died, and that hundreds more are going to die today. I…I wasn’t ready for that.”

“Sorry.” Amelia said. “The conditioning was supposed to help with that, but…you don’t have it anymore. Um…do you want me to send you home? No one will have to know.”

Lia shook her head. “N-no. I need to get used to it, and I’m not going to run like a coward. I have to see this through. Give me a second and I’ll get back to giving info.”

“Take as much time as you need.” Rose said, walking over and rubbing Lia’s back comfortingly. “We can get that information in another way, and I think I speak for the entire swarm when I say I’d rather you don’t overdo it.”

Rose sighed, then gave Lia an apologetic look. “I’m afraid that, if Amelia and I need to fight, I’m going to need to use my right to teleport you away. I won’t hear any complaints about it, either; I’ve seen this pattern before, and someone in your condition is simply not capable of fighting their best. Against the rank and file, adrenaline and stats would get you through just fine, but you’ll just be getting yourself killed if you have to fight someone at or near max level.”

Lia opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by an earsplitting boom, the sky lighting up and the ground beneath them rumbling from the strength of the explosion.

“Some sort of strong siege mage or group of mages.” Amelia said. “That spell had a lot of power in it, even if it was lacking finesse. I was able to redirect it, but for the sake of conserving Mana I could only send it up. I –”

She cut off, her face screwing up in concentration, and there was yet another explosion. “Definitely multiple groups. Lia, I’m sending you back, now. Sorry, but this needs my full attention, and I’m not risking you getting hurt because of a lapse in my concentration.”

“But –”

“No buts. We agreed on this before.” Amelia said, already beginning to work a spell.

There was a wrenching sensation in Lia’s gut, and suddenly she found herself back in her room.

“L-Lia!” Connie exclaimed, rushing over. “What’s happening, is everything alright?”

Lia frowned. “I don’t know. A bunch of big spells started being cast and then Amelia sent me back because she didn’t want to risk it.”

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Connie frowned back. “You look really pale.” She said. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

Lia sighed. “I…I froze up, Connie.” She admitted. “The moment I saw someone actually die I realized that, in a sense, it was my fault. And then I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing and had to stop to throw up. It’s pathetic, I talked all that talk and then at the first moment I just –”

“It’s not pathetic.” Connie said sharply. “It’s perfectly normal to feel that way your first time seeing death like that. War isn’t pretty, and the fact that it’s affecting you means you care about life, and that’s not a bad thing. In fact, I’d be a lot more worried if you weren’t affected by it. Go lie down in bed and I’ll get you some soup, okay?”

“But –”

“The only butt I want to see is yours in the bed, understand?”

“Yes, Connie.”

---

“Amelia, what’s the status?” Rose requested.

“I’m decently sure it’s four groups of high-level mages working in tandem to fire those spells.” Amelia said. “I’m pretty sure they’re hoping to drain all my Mana by generating threats I need to answer, and I hate to say it’s working. At this rate, they’re probably going to be able to fire one or two volleys I can’t counter before their Mana is exhausted.”

“Understood.” Rose said. “I’ve been in touch with the leader of our mages, they said you’ll only need to deflect a few more before they get a good enough grasp to neutralize the spells.”

“Is that all?” Amelia snorted. “I’ve got another dozen in me, easy.”

“Good. Once we’ve switched over to them, we’re going to start hunting down these groups ourselves. Do you have an estimate of where they are?”

Amelia held up a finger to indicate that she was busy, and a moment later another explosion rocked the battlefield. “Yes. They’re lacking in subtlety.”

Rose frowned. “Lacking in subtlety from your perspective, or they just aren’t trying to hide their location?”

“My perspective.” Amelia confirmed. “They’ve clearly made an effort, but with this amount of Mana going into the spells, the best they could do was add in a few location spoofs. Amateurish work, really.”

Rose thought on that for a moment. For the vast majority of mages, likely everyone that wasn’t Amelia, they wouldn’t be able to untangle the obfuscation and counter the spell before the spell dealt significant damage. So, the question became how far ahead the alliance had thought; did they anticipate that Amelia could do both and were laying a trap for her?

Given the circumstances, Rose suspected they weren’t. For one, they were almost certainly using the declaration the swarm had made at their diplomatic talk against them; the swarm had made it clear that they wouldn't send their soldiers on suicide missions or make sacrifices, and if the Goddess of Law or anyone else had given any sort of confirmation to the alliance that they had spoken true, then this was clearly a ploy working off of that information.

Even if they didn’t know for sure, they could be using it to test the swarm. Would they continue to deal with the spells, or would they let a couple impact the battlefield in exchange for taking care of the root of the issue? They had to know that Amelia was more than capable of countering these spells. In fact, it would be downright stupid to do something like this if they didn’t know.

The spells were big, flashy, and relatively slow. They were targets just begging to be countered, and more importantly, they were not the most efficient use of Mana. Even if just one of those spells got countered, that was a significant chunk of Mana that was wasted; similar effects could be achieved by using more smaller-scale spells, and if one or two of those got countered it wasn’t as big a deal.

Yes, Amelia was probably right in thinking that they were trying to drain her Mana. And Rose suspected that the enemy’s leadership didn’t truly understand how much more skilled Amelia was than everyone else. The defenses they had left up were underwhelming if Rose assumed they were meant to deter Amelia. They were had increased security after the Simona incident, and now the defenses were better than most, but “better than most” wouldn’t stop the walking anomaly that was Amelia.

For the time being, Rose had elected to let them keep thinking that their defenses were effective. Until she found a time when she could be confident that a strike would cripple their leadership and she was confident the swarm’s army was in a position to take advantage of the confusion that would cause, she wanted to keep the element of surprise.

So, unless they were trying an incredibly risky gambit by leaving themselves effectively defenseless, they likely didn’t know Amelia’s true power. And, given that assumption, it was likely that they assumed Amelia couldn’t discern the location of their spellcasters whilst countering the spells. So, it was likely that they hadn’t set a trap for Amelia and Rose with the spellcasters, and even if they had, Rose was confident that the worst they would be able to do was put herself and Amelia out of commission for a few hours.

A couple more tense minutes passed, and then Rose received word that her mages had finished their analysis of the spellwork and were confident that they could handle a few. “Amelia, stop countering the spells, let our mages take over.” Rose instructed. “How much Mana do you have?”

“Just under half.” Amelia said.

“How much do you think you’ll regenerate by the time two more spells have been fired?”

“Enough to put me just over half.”

“Good enough.” Rose replied. “On my signal, be ready to teleport the two of us to whichever group you think is next in the rotation. We’re going to teleport in, I’m going to try to disable all the mages, and you’re going to teleport us out when I’m finished, got it? Then, once that’s done, we’ll hit the other three camps as fast as possible. Do you think you have enough Mana for that, or should we wait longer?”

“Assuming I only have to ward off regular soldiers, we should be fine.” Amelia replied, taking a moment to pause and drink a Mana potion. Those potions weren’t made with the Mana pool of someone like Amelia or Rose in mind, but every little bit helped. “If we get someone near max level, we might have to cut off early.”

Rose bit a knuckle as she thought on that. “How much more leeway will waiting a total of four spells give us? Our mages estimate they can counter six in total before their Mana is depleted.”

“Plenty. I think waiting four casts is overkill, three should be enough.”

Another explosion tore rocked the area, this one much closer and more intense. “Three it is, then.” Rose said. “Get ready.”