Chapter 131

“I’ve heard that the Seven Luminaries’ god can move mountains with his miracles! I think they actually teleported!” This unforeseen turn of events sent a wave of terror through Neuro’s staff officers. The Freyjagard HQ was in chaos, and with Neuro absent, there was no way to reorder things. Amid the madness… “Reverse course! All rearguard units, turn around! And make it fast!” …the chief of staff invoked his authority upon realizing that they were on track to get annihilated. “Ch-Chief?! D-do you really have the right to just move the army like that?!” “Of course not, but what choice do we have?! The enemy is on our doorstep! If we don’t pull ourselves together, we’ll be slaughtered! All forces, charge at the hostiles coming from the south! If it’s a messy fight they want, we’ll meet them and strike hard! I’ll take full responsibility for this!” After hearing that the chief of staff would take the heat for this, the rearguard cavalry troops at the base of the hill managed to regain some sense of order. So long as they had someone in charge, they were the best cavalry in the empire. They swiftly turned around and reversed course. “Our foes are many, but they’re only infantry! Plus, they’re coming off their hill down into the basin! This is where mounted warriors shine! Make them regret underestimating us!” The enemy ambush forces were about a third of a mile away, which was plenty of space for the cavalry to build up momentum. Up in the sky… “Wh-what the hell do those apes think they’re doing?!” …a furious Neuro paled at his forces’ decision. His staff officers had made the worst decision possible for their situation. Half of the Freyjagard troops were engaged with Yamato’s, yet the forces that were supposed to back them up abandoned their post. They were dividing themselves like idiots. The imperial rearguard could no longer fulfill its appointed duty. Neuro’s soldiers and officers should have held their ground and intercepted the surprise charge from their original position. People couldn’t just vanish like smoke and teleport away, after all. However, Neuro only knew that because he understood that Akatsuki’s miracles were magic tricks. The same couldn’t be said of his officers. What’s more, they couldn’t see Tsukasa or the original Yamato army. Tsukasa had pulled his forces back from the eight-tenths mark to the forest behind the hill ahead of time. The rearguard troops waiting at the base of the hill had no eyes on the woods behind it. A man revered across the continent as a god using a miracle to teleport the Yamato soldiers south seemed entirely possible. The trick had been based around visual angles, Akatsuki’s talents, and the public perception of the prodigy magician. Together, those factors caused the rearguard to make a fatal error. Now the vanguard was left alone. And Neuro had a riven army. When the Blue Grandmaster realized this… Oh no! …a wave of alarm raced through him. He turned his attention back to the forest the Prodigies fled into. And that’s when a young woman came speeding from the trees like an arrow. It was prodigy swordmaster Aoi Ichijou. Is she using Levitation?! Shi— “HRAAAAAAAH!!!!” “~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!!!” Aoi flew through by way of Lyrule’s magic, closed in on Neuro in the blink of an eye, and brought a full-force attack down on his head. Neuro narrowly managed to block the slash with his flaming Rage Soleil spear, but not even that was enough to dull the raw force of the attack. He was smacked from the air to crash near the top of the hill by his vanguard. “G-GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” “““Grandmaster Neuro!””” Neuro writhed in agony after being dashed against the ground, and his soldiers panicked at this sudden development. It was a golden opportunity for Tsukasa, and he took advantage just as Neuro had anticipated. “Our enemies have no backup, and their wave tactics have stalled! This is our chance to strike! “Our target is the enemy commander, Neuro ul Levias! “All units, CHAAAAARGE!!” When they heard Tsukasa’s order, the soldiers who’d fled into the trees ran forward with all their strength. “He did it, Mr. Angel!” said the ninja disguised as Akatsuki running alongside Tsukasa. “That he did,” Tsukasa replied. His voice rang with respect for Akatsuki, who was more than worthy of being called a Prodigy. The Prodigies had been unable to go on the offensive because the empire always had a group in reserve, ready for anything. But now that Akatsuki’s units had lured that backup away, the Yamato army could go in without fear of a counterattack. What’s more, Neuro had conveniently defied Tsukasa’s expectations and taken to the battlefield in person. There was no better time to go for Neuro’s throat! “With this one attack, we can put this entire pointless war to rest!” Tsukasa cried as he helped clear the cavalry away with his rifle while racing forward with the Yamato soldiers. The scattered Yamato infantry charged without formation, but given the situation, that was for the best. By climbing the hill, the imperial vanguard cavalry had taken the high ground. If the Yamato troops had tried to group up for an attack, the enemy cavalry would have taken them all out at once. Attacking as scattered units was the right call, especially when those units were skilled Yamato warriors. One of the Yamato army’s core merits was the raw prowess of its warriors, and now they were able to put that strength to full use. Neuro’s cavalry was unable to fully withstand the all-out offensive, and the Yamato troops tore through its ranks with ease. The Yamato soldiers were closing in on Neuro by the second. “Agh! Shit!” he shouted, cursing the circumstances. He would have loved to run. “HRAAAAAAH!” “Rrrrgh!” The problem was, Aoi wouldn’t let up, pursuing him down the hill. Neuro met her attacks with his fiery spear, locking blades. “Don’t you dare look down on me, you wretched APE!!!!” “Protect the grandmasterrrr!!!!” “You are in my way, that you are!!!!” Neuro was up against the prodigy swordmaster. The nearby Freyjagard soldiers tried to step in to help, but they couldn’t stop Aoi’s ferocious assault. That said, their relinquished lives managed to slow her down a bit, offering Neuro a chance to collect himself. First, he dispelled his Rage Soleil. Large-scale war magic would hit him, too, in close quarters. He didn’t give a damn how many Yamatoans or imperials he incinerated, but he wouldn’t risk catching himself in the blast radius. Neuro released the fire spirits he’d pressed into the shape of a spear, then took the magic binding them and spun it into a different spell. “Shadowfang!” Neuro slammed the butt of his staff on the ground—against his own shadow. Its shape flickered, then rapidly expanded and surged for Aoi and the oncoming Yamato soldiers. The moment it made contact with their shadows, a horde of black dogs came leaping out. “Ah!” “What are the—? Arrrrgh!” The dogs sank their fangs into the shocked Yamato soldiers’ throats, wrestled them to the ground, and dragged them down into the shadows. The Yamato soldiers were so fired up when Tsukasa gave the order to attack, but between the unexpected surprise attack and the bizarre sight of people being devoured by shadows, their morale plummeted. Screams and terror spread through the troops, and the Yamato charge slowed to a crawl. Aoi was the only one who fully evaded the dark hounds emerging from all directions and the imperial cavalry… “Rkh…” …but even so, she had no choice but to delay the attack. That was precisely what Neuro hoped for. There was no better chance to escape this absolute mess of a battle. It was now or never. He shot a glance toward the base of the hill below, but what he saw there left him speechless. “AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!” “W-we’ve got trouble! They’ve broken past our rearguard!” “I see Neuro! He’s over there!” “Don’t waste any time helping our captured troops! Chaaaaarge!! Kill him, and victory is ours!” Akatsuki’s army of a thousand had shrunk considerably, the price of crashing into the rearguard cavalry, but it had never stalled. Its soldiers stormed up the hill. Their cries emboldened the soldiers fighting off the dogs behind the hill. The Yamato soldiers who’d charged from the forest gritted their teeth and resumed their advance. Shit! They’re in front of me; they’re behind me… At this rate…! A pincer maneuver was closing in around Neuro, and he was the sole target. There was nowhere for him to flee on the hill. Even if he tried escaping to the air, they’d just follow after him with Levitation, so it wouldn’t do him any good. And with how close the enemies were, war magic was too dangerous to rely on. I’m out of options. The moment that despair-inducing thought crept through his head, Neuro felt a heavy weight in his pocket. He did have a card he could play. There was a syringe in his pocket full of refined Philosopher’s Stone that he could inject into his veins. Doing so would trigger a gentler evolution than the violent transformation caused by forcibly implanting it in its stone form. If he used the Philosopher’s Stone, he would be unstoppable. Once the evolution gave him his former power back, he could… Should I do it?! But…if I do…! Neuro took the syringe and made to plunge its tip into one of his veins. However, the chill of the needle against his skin sent shivers down his entire body. It was true that evolution via refined Philosopher’s Stones was comparatively gentle, but that didn’t change the fact that he would be forcibly overwriting the composition of his body. Would frail human flesh really be able to withstand that change? There was an infinitesimal chance it would backfire. Actually, no. Based on the data from their original experiments, the odds of a bad outcome were actually higher than that. The probability of a human body transforming successfully was about 90 percent. In other words, there was a 10 percent failure rate. Neuro thought back to his past life, to the countless experiments they ran on this world’s natives. He remembered how people contorted in pain when injected with factors that forced them to evolve. He remembered the horrible ways they perished as their innards tore themselves apart. Neuro found the way they writhed on the ground like worms hilarious at the time, but the thought of the same thing happening to him… …is no laughing matter! “Why should someone like me have to take such an inane risk?!” However, the fact of the matter was that Aoi was almost upon him. Neuro only had moments left before she broke past his knights. On seeing that, Neuro bit his lip, groaned, took his syringe… “What the hell does that lout think he’s doing?!” …and cursed someone. Before the battle, his Dragon Knights had told him about the other army approaching the Tomino Basin. Not his delayed infantry—a different allied force. And that was when it happened. A veritable squall of gunshots roared across the whole of the battlefield. “Wh-what’s that noise?!” “Gunshots?! Wait, who’re they?!” Yamato and imperial soldiers alike froze in shock at the unexpected sound. The entire situation turned on its head before their very eyes. An army equipped with bolt-action rifles came pouring out from behind every tree and shrub in the forest around the Tomino Basin. From the look of it, it was a massive force made up of well over two thousand fighters. They’d even been lurking in the very same section of woods behind the hill Tsukasa’s forces had emerged from. The large army was made up of both hyuma and byuma… It was the Qinglong Gang. And it was being led… “Cool your jets, Aoi.” …by prodigy businessman Masato Sanada. “M-Masato, m’lord…?!” “Both armies are gonna have a temporary cease-fire. As of now, I’m in charge.”