Arena

Laman City, Aman Empire.

This Amani city was bordering the northern border of the Arend Kingdom, and there were small scuffles between the two sides all the time, even before the war began.

Thanks to that, this city became something akin to a fortress with more soldiers than civilians. The absolute majority of the civilians were also just families of the soldiers.

As this city possessed fine barracks and walls for defense, it was natural that this was chosen as the basecamp for the conquest.

Nearly 200,000 Amani soldiers were constantly residing here, and they were prepared to invade the Arend lands upon immediate orders.

However, recently, there was a setback in their preparations.

They could only fight a proper battle if and once enough food arrived to feed the whole camp, but the supply could not meet the demand.

As they weren’t given supplies in time, the soldiers began to voice their dissatisfaction as they were skipping one, or even two meals a day.

At this rate, their morale would collapse.

Meanwhile, a single satellite in space was video recording the entire situation from above.

***

Dana analyzed the distribution of the soldiers throughout Laman City through the satellite.

While he was doing that, Odin entered his secret room, which was at the end of the corridor.

“How is it going?”

“Mr. Kim is retreating safely.”

“What are you looking at now?”

“The situation in Laman City.”

Only then did Odin have a look at the map that Dana had drawn.

It contained a detailed layout of the distribution of soldiers.

It was as though he prepared this in order for the allies to strike first.

“What do you mean by this?”

“We have all of the examinees on our side. The Aman Imperial Army does not have the dark magicians and Lee Chang-wee’s group as they haven’t arrived yet.”

“You mean we should take this opportunity to attack first.”

“Indeed.”

Dana nodded and continued.

“Why don’t we have Mr. Kim hold them in place through long-range sniping, and have us attack Laman City first during the meantime?”

“So you mean to utilize all the examinees here.”

“Yes. We’ll let the enemies get distracted with the Arend Royal Army, and put the examinees in there secretly. We have a lot of examinees other than the 33 that are participating in the final battle, so this is a feasible plan.”

Odin fell into contemplation when he heard those words.

Yes, this was definitely a possible plan. After all, they were fully aware of the inner workings of the defenses of Laman City.

If the nimble and strong examinees utilized this advantage, they should be able to deal a serious strike.”

The problem was that….

“It’s too burdening for Mr. Kim.”

“I guess that’s the case, but he can shoot from more than 5 kilometers away. On top of that, elementalism is undetectable by dark magic.”

“Hmmm.”

Odin was also aware of the destructive power Kim Hyunho’s sniper rifle was capable of producing.

However, that didn’t mean that he was able to safely gain time against the dark magicians and Lee Chang-wee’s group single-handedly.

‘I think he’s definitely capable of it, but he will be taking a big risk.’

He thought about it for a moment.

However, he then came to a conviction.

‘Everyone is taking risks. This cannot be helped.’

“Very well. I shall talk to His Majesty about it. He’ll probably allow it. My opinions work well on him after all.”

Just as Odin guaranteed, King Alsefon III started discussing attacking Laman City with the other nobles.

The discussion was about whether or not to proactively attack at this time when the enemy supply chain was in a mess.

However, the real plan was to have the examinees infiltrate the city and cause massive damage.

Meanwhile, Dana relayed this plan to Kim Hyunho who was still in the Aman Empire.

***

“I like it.”

-Will you be okay?

“Yes. I’ll do it. I think it’s a good plan.”

-Thanks.

After having a conversation with Dana, I spoke with Jihye.

“You heard that?”

“I did.”

“I’ll first call Secondborn so go back to camp first. I’ll remain behind and deal with those pesky…….”

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t want to?”

I asked back in shock.

She was surprisingly firm in her opinion about this.

“I will remain behind and protect you.”

“I appreciate your feelings, but there’s nothing for you to do here. I’ll be harassing them from long range.”

“The dark magicians are there and we don’t know what method they will use to attack you. It will be safer for me to be with you just in case you get attacked.”

“It’s also easier for me to move around by myself.”

“Then call out Secondborn. I’ll guard you from a distance.”

Damn, she only said what was right.

She simply didn’t want to lose out on this. So this was what my sister felt like when she was talking to her.

“You’ll get mistreated if you keep defying your husband like that.”

“You are not my husband yet though?”

“Huh? Did you forget? We’re married here in Arena.”

“I don’t care, and I’m staying.”

Damn.

I wanted to let her go to a safe place as this was a dangerous mission, but that seemed far-fetched.

I was just about to give up and allow her to stay, but then something flashed in my mind.

“There’s a condition though.”

“Please speak.”

“You’ll have to comply with this if you really want to fight with me.”

“Okay, please tell me what it is.”

“Call me oppa.”

“Unders……?”

She was just about to say “understood” but stopped.

“I think I just heard wrong.”

“I just told you to call me oppa.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Then go back to camp. As I said just now, I cannot allow you to fight here if you don’t comply with that.”

“Not only is there no reason to call you oppa, as I’m a year older than you, I feel this is unrelated to the battle at all.”

“What do you mean it’s unrelated? Don’t you know that being called oppa makes every man stronger than he actually is? You don’t even understand that? I can’t fight alongside you then. Off you go, back to camp.”

“That’s unreasonable.”

She sounded a little frustrated.

“You can put your life on the line for me, but you can’t do such a simple thing? Aah~, I’m now doubting your feelings about me. I can’t fight feeling like this after all. Please go back.”

I became as unreasonable as I could be, and summoned Secondborn in the process.

In the end, she spoke in a really startled voice.

“It’s too awkward for me to call you oppa as I still have my habits as a soldier.”

“Hey, how long do you think it has been since you were discharged? You are simply lacking in your efforts for me. We are going to get married and live together, and once I come back from work, are you going to keep welcoming me with your emotionless voice like that?”

“I, I apologize. I’ll try to do better in the future.”

“Fine, then I’ll take a step back and change the word.”

“?”

“Call me honey.”

“…….!?”

Her arms around my waist suddenly became tighter.

I barely held myself back from laughing and became more shameless.

“Come on, quickly. We are going to get married soon, and you aren’t going to call me honey either? I’ll take that as a divorce.”

“Th, that’s……..”

“Go on, if you hate me, then just leave me.”

“Okay, then. H, honey.”

“I think I misheard that. Can you say it again?”

“You did hear it.”

“I did not.”

Even while I teased her, I controlled Firstborn to fly north-west.

This was the direction of the transportation troops that Lee Chang-wee guarded. In the end, I decided to take her with me. 𝐟𝓇ℯ𝐞𝚠𝚎𝒃𝑛𝒐ѵe𝚕.co𝚖

I was in the middle of asking her to do some other, uhm, embarrassing things.

The Marble of the Abyss in my pocket started ringing and Dana’s voice came out.

-I’m very sorry to interrupt you at such a critical moment, but you’re closing in on the enemies.

“Oh, are we?”

-Yes, you’re around 30km away from them. Please prepare yourselves.

“Okay, then.”

I pointed towards Secondborn who was flying beside Firstborn and spoke.

“Well, then, honey. Please hop onto that one.”

“Okay.”

“Nu-uh!”

“…… Okay, honey.”

Hm, much better. Stiff, military speech tone used to say such a sweet word. That made it so interesting.

“Arm!”

I took out the Neilson R3.

“Sylph, scout the area.”

-Nyaan!

Sylph flew towards the north-east after being summoned.

There was a long line of carriages, as well as cavalry that was on high guard that surrounded it. There were also Lee Chang-wee and the others that camouflaged themselves as ordinary soldiers.

The soldiers with black hair and Asian-tone skin were almost all Chinese examinees.

‘Return, Sylph.’

I aimed at one of the Chinese examinees through the scope.

Sylph adjusted my aim when it returned.

I didn’t summon Kasa just yet, as a lump of fire in the sky may get detected, even from afar.

‘Let’s do this!’

I killed the sound with Sylph and fired the first round.

Whoooosh!

A 20mm round whizzed through the air and struck the head of a Chinese examinee suspect.

As the power behind the anti-material rifle was so great, his head literally exploded.

Thanks to that, the soldiers and horses nearby all went into a panic.

I continued and pulled the trigger against another target. Sylph automatically adjusted the aim to the black-haired soldiers that were suspected to be corrupt examinees.

Fwoosh plop!

This time, the chest was pulverized and blood spurted out from where the heart once was.

But then, one man abruptly jumped out from the crowd and started dashing towards me.

It was Lee Chang-wee.

He left his horse and started running towards me at incredible speeds as he was using aura to support it.

“Lee Chang-wee’s approaching! We’ll retreat now.”

“Shoot the wheel of the frontmost carriage!”

Jihye quickly spoke up.

‘Oh!’

Only then did I realize that that was a good method to delay their procession and pulled the trigger on the rifle.

Fwoooosh booom!

Sylph gave the bullet an additional spin, and with my bullet adjustment skill on top of that, that single bullet single-handedly destroyed half of the carriage that was at the very front.

After that, I ran away without any regrets before Lee Chang-wee approached. Jihye also followed me from behind.

-The Eyes of the Abyss will be tracking you.

Dana suddenly warned.

Oh yeah, there was no way the dark magicians were letting this go.

Just as Dana had pointed that out, I shouted to Sylph.

“Sylph, destroy all of the Eyes of the Abyss that follow us!”

-Nyaan!

Sylph threw some wind blades as soon as I said that.

The blades of wind that Sylph had cast continuously struck something down from the air.

Dana was very correct.

Like that, we were able to distance ourselves from them and even shook off the tracking from the dark magicians.