I, Cordelia Allston, was furious.
“Aaagh! Enough already! They just keep coming!”
Shunk.
With a heavy, wet crack, the Ogre General’s lower jaw split clean from the upper, its massive head coming apart like butchered meat. The beast collapsed in a heap with a dull thud, shaking the ground as it fell.
I didn’t even glance at the rest of the ogres swarming ahead. Instead, I spun on my heel and sprinted back toward the fortress gates. Raising my right hand, I gave a sharp, unmistakable signal.
We were now forty-eight hours into this siege.
At my cue, a strike force surged out from behind the gate, an organized front of knights and seasoned adventurers, many of them instructors. They stormed forward in tight formation, blades drawn, spells at the ready.
Good. At the very least, they could handle the ogres without me for a while. If I had to deal with every single one of them, I’d be dead from exhaustion before dawn.
As things stood, I was the strongest fighter here. That wasn’t arrogance; it was fact. Which meant every resource in this fortress had to be deployed with one goal: keeping me functional for as long as possible. That decision had been made unanimously forty-eight hours ago.
Because if I fell, so would the rest of the two hundred defenders inside this fortress.
And if the fortress fell, then the town of Noches—population fifty thousand—would be next. Wiped out, without a chance.
We’d already suffered over twenty casualties. A bitter number, but considering the scale of what we were up against, it was a cost we had to accept.
My job was clear: take down the Ogre Generals. Let the others deal with the fodder. That was the only way to conserve my stamina.
That was what I told myself, anyway. That it was necessary. That it was logical.
But still, the taste of blood pooled in my mouth, my lips cracked and split from stress and fatigue. The copper sting only added to my rising nausea.
“How the hell did it come to this?” I muttered under my breath. “This was supposed to be a joint training exercise with the knights, wasn’t it? Just a simulated march. So why the hell… Why is it like this?!”
I passed beneath the shadow of the fortress gate, jaw clenched, heart pounding. And the nightmare still wasn’t over.
Well, calling it a gate was generous. The doors had been obliterated during the oni’s first assault.
I stormed through the ruined entrance into the fortress and immediately let my fury fly at the group waiting inside.
“You! You’re all supposed to be elite students, aren’t you?!” The words burst out of me, sharp with rage. “You’ve got layers of defense magic wrapped around this place, and there are forty of you standing here looking pretty! Don’t tell me you couldn’t hold out for even a little while without me! If all forty of you actually put your bodies on the line, it’s not like it’d be impossible, right?!”
No one said a word in response. Not that I blamed them. Deep down, I knew I was asking the impossible.
These kids were stronger, on paper, than most veteran adventurers or even knights. But they had no real combat experience. Most of them were pampered nobles, children of powerful families blessed with talent, wealth, and the best education money could buy. Their stats looked good, sure, but that was it.
They didn’t have the resolve to die. They didn’t have the will to fight. Not yet.
They were powerful, yes, but they weren’t warriors.
As things stood, they weren’t just useless. They were a liability.
“If I’m not out there, the Ogre Generals will take the chance to rush the gate! Without me, we don’t have the firepower to stop them. The barrier’s going to fall. If that happens, we’re finished! And yet… if I can’t push through to disrupt their command structure, we’re just going to be swallowed alive by their endless reinforcements! They just keep coming and coming… Dammit, what are we supposed to do?!”
Again, silence.
We’d already sent messengers to the Magic Academy and the surrounding lords when we first ran into that swarm of ogres. Reinforcements were coming, probably. But even if they were, it’d be another three or four days at best.
Logically, the only real option was to hunker down and wait it out. But even that felt like a death sentence.
I dropped into a chair and buried my face in my hands.
Took a swig of water. Muttered to no one.
Based on the scouts’ reports, those with reconnaissance skills, the enemy forces included at least fifty Ogre Generals and more than a thousand regular ogres.
“This isn’t some random surge. This is beyond abnormal.”
Ogres weren’t like goblins; they were elite monsters, not the kind you saw in swarms.
This number was beyond excessive. It was impossible.
But why? Why are the ogres still launching these scattered skirmishes instead of hitting us all at once?
I’d asked myself that question more times than I could count. And every time, I came back to the same answer.
Because this was about me. A slow, methodical form of harassment meant to wear me down personally. And it was working. My nerves were shot, my patience gone. I had nothing left to spare for kindness or consideration. I was in survival mode, pure and simple.
The enemy had clearly realized that I was the linchpin, the one irreplaceable piece in our defense. So they’d started sending in an Ogre General every hour, on the hour. Day and night, no breaks. Just enough pressure to keep me from sleeping. That was the goal—to deprive me of rest. To break me down before the real push.
At minimum, we still had three days until reinforcements arrived. But even that was uncertain. There was every chance the messengers had been intercepted and killed before they reached anyone. If that happened, no one would be coming. We were on our own.
If things continued like this, we’d be slowly crushed. No matter how strong the walls were, this wasn’t a fight we could win by holing up inside. Eventually, the fortress would fall.
“So, what now?”
If it were just about saving myself, the answer was simple: I could run. I had more than enough skill to get out alive.
But if I left, the others would be slaughtered.
There was one more option, high-risk, high-reward. I could break out and strike deep into enemy lines. If I managed to destroy their command structure, the ogre forces might lose cohesion and retreat. It was a long shot, but possible.
Still, it was a double-edged sword. If I made that move, I’d be abandoning the gate. The second I left, the ogres would crash through, and the students wouldn’t be able to hold. The casualties would be devastating. Maybe total.
Then again, staying here wasn’t sustainable either. Sooner or later, I’d collapse. And if I did, that would be the end anyway.
“Damn it… Fighting while defending is the worst.”
And going on the offensive wouldn’t be any easier. I’d have to face down potentially over a hundred Ogre Generals. To survive that, I’d need to unleash everything, activate Magic Overdrive, and push my body past its limit.
But Overdrive wasn’t free. It burned both magic and mana, converting that energy into raw physical power. It was effective but time-limited. I could only maintain it for so long before I crashed.
And when that happened, there’d be no getting back up.
A hundred Ogre Generals. That number, in a perfect scenario, at full power, if I opened with everything I had and every strike landed just right, then maybe I could wipe them out. Barely.