Chapter 358: Towards Independence ①

The Weitz Orphanage was receiving dawn as usual.

As if reacting to the brightening sky, the children were coming out to the garden.

It is because it is gymnastics time which has become a custom in the early mornings.

It was begun in order to get the children to have the minimum amount of physical strength to endure the training.

“Hey, the war is going to begin today, right?”

“That’s right. We are going to crush the Aion Kingdom.”

“Everyone will be made fillet by Lime-san.”

“If I become a soldier, will I be able to eat tasty stuff like the ones the Kuzunoha Company brought the other day?”

“It would be better to join a company and become a merchant to eat tasty food!”

The voices of innocent children were resonating heartwarmingly from here and there.

For some fate or another, the Rembrandt Company, the Kuzunoha Company, and recently even the Bronzeman Company were showing up at the Weitz Orphanage.

Even if they have no intention of having them hear it, the conversations from the adults would leak bit by bit, and leaving aside just how much they understand of it, they were able to make conversation in this way.

Well, the children are energetic.

They were adapting to their new lifestyle at outstanding speed too.

Their environment as orphans must be serving as a plus, because you could tell even from the side that they are doing their best at studying and training.

Of course, there’s those that are good and those that aren’t, and children are children.

There’s those who tend to get tired, and those with a limit to their concentration.

There’s no doubt the ones dispatched to be teachers were having a tough time.

But the number one problem at present isn’t that.

It was the staff team that were mixed with the children and had somewhat fatigued expressions.

Due to them being thoughtless adults, their speed to absorb knowledge and technique in general is slow.

It takes them their all just to deal with the sudden changes happening everyday, and most feel like they have no leeway to concentrate on the skill ups.

Reaching the conclusion that even the young and passionate staff members like Seina and Tigu would be breaking in a few days at this rate, they cried about it to Tomoe who is their window to the Kuzunoha Company.

They are being required to be like elementary school teachers; know and teach all subjects to a certain extent, and be able to answer questions.

Because of that, their training is combined with actual practice which is slightly brutal, but as people working in an orphanage, the treatment they receive is unbelievably great.

Seina and the others supplicated to have the expected line for them to be having the knowledge of a middle schooler or high schooler, for their specialization to not be high and limit it only one subject per person, but…Tomoe laughed it off.

Regarding the list of equipment and the money request they brought in addition, she just skimmed through it and signed it.

‘So lukewarm. Do it.’

Tomoe had managed to keep a fixed smile from beginning to end as she accepted or rejected.

Because of all that, the staff members had tired expressions.

The reason why not a single one of them has run away is because, even if they were to excuse themselves, they felt that there’s no way there would be a job offer out there that would surpass the conditions here, and they also have a desire to somehow maintain this environment where the expressions of the children have made a clear turn.

They were pushing on by sheer strength of will.

“Hey, Seina-neechan!”

“…Whaat?” (Seina)

Seina, who was doing gymnastics by pure inertia and was dreaming about being able to sleep a bit more, reacted to the call of the child.

The bags below her eyes are beginning to get hard to hide, but she doesn’t forget to smile.

“There’s someone there.”

“?!!”

‘There is someone there’, those words made Seina open her eyes wide.

Right now there hasn’t been any incident where the Weitz Orphanage can be dealt direct harm.

However, since they have obtained this good luck, they shouldn’t lower their guards.

After the reconstruction, there have been propositions from many companies.

At the same time, the director Kimaro has warned all the staff members to keep their eyes peeled and not get swept under to make things even better.

He has seen and experienced many quarrels of varying sizes between companies as a relative of the Hanza Company, and he has been careful so that the Weitz Orphanage doesn’t see that since its beginnings.

Seina is one of the employees that works sincerely.

If it is someone that brings harm to the children, they must act at once.

“Eh?” (Seina)

Seina looked at the place where one of the orphans pointed at, and she ended up letting out a dumbfounded voice.

It couldn’t be helped.

They are currently at a height that could be considered that of the 3rd floor of a building, and the place they pointed at was at a far off place, where the city’s outer wall is at.

“…Is that…a person?” (Seina)

The shoulder and up was peeking out from the horizon.

A backfigure.

It was clearly gigantic.

She hasn’t seen a giant before, but according to what Lime has told her before, there’s no giant that could be seen from the other side of the horizon.

“What what? Aaaaah?! There’s someone there! Hey, over there! There’s someone!”

“SOOOOO BIIIIIIG!”

“It shone!”

“WOAAAH!!”

The attention of the children was fully on the giant at the horizon now.

“It must have to do with the war. Definitely.”

“Must be. Lime must be over there… Don’t die. Seriously.”

“I thought for sure that today we would be getting a free day and we would be on standby, and yet, we are operating as usual. If that giant is going to make today a free day, tell me.”

“From what I heard, the Aion army has a big army of 500,000 or 1,000,000 people. Will they be okay?”

The orphans were super excited, but the mood of the staff members was going down the dumps.

Tsige was surprisingly peaceful.

◇◇◆◆◇◇◆◆◇◇◆◆◇◇◆◆

“…What’s this?”

Sunrise.

The war will finally begin.

I was watching the live broadcast of the battlefield in the store of the Kuzunoha Company.

The Aion Army requested for a Blessing from the Goddess, and Tsige would be competing for that Blessing with a war of words…is what I thought would happen, but the Blessing was one-sidedly given to the Aion army.

Is it because the Apostle of the Goddess is on their side?!

Is what I thought for a second, but when I observed properly, Tsige didn’t try to obtain the Blessing in the first place.

Of course the Blessing would go to the Aion army.

I couldn’t tell what kind of battle it would turn out to be, and while I was watching the situation from my desk, Rembrandt-san had appeared in good timing around the outer wall.

However…as a super gigantic projection.

An illusion spell.

I can tell that, but I don’t understand the reason why.

There’s already no war of words, and the side the Blessing will be going to has already been decided.

Isn’t the only thing remaining to do a raw war with a clash of bodies?

“!”

The projection of Rembrandt-san waved his arm widely.

It had a truly strong presence despite being an illusion that can’t create wind or mow down enemy soldiers.

Aah, I was thinking something was strange. There’s light of many colors lighting up from below…no, those are called SE lights? This thing has a production value like that of a concert.

It still isn’t completely bright outside, so the effects of light and sounds are still present.

…It really is giving the atmosphere of a live concert.

“A speech.” (Makoto)

If you want to attack us, feel free to do so.

The battle has already begun.

With that as the opening, Rembrandt-san begins to speak things that were a given, and began to talk about the justification of the independence of Tsige.

The movement of the Aion army seems to be slightly dull.

In the first place, I feel like they are way too close.

The emergency stores of the towns on the way, the damage of the Golden Highway, and the supplies that don’t match the amount of soldiers that have been sent near the outer walls.

Hmm.

Or more like, even in the time Rembrandt-san was talking, Tsige has also shrewdly begun moving.

Ritual magic, huh.

…Leaving aside whether they will be allowed to shoot it or not, it is effective in stopping some of the enemy mages from doing anything else, probably.

That’s a large army move though?

Tsige is losing in the numbers department, so no matter how effective this is at lowering the enemy numbers…I feel like stopping the movements of the same number of enemies from the other side is a bad move.

“It is kinda impressive. It shines, and it makes noise…noise? No, this is close to singing? Isn’t this a war? …Ah!” (Makoto)

Tsige was activating fire ritual magic.

A giant fireball that shone brilliantly white was shot at the Aion army and was easily erased.

Of course.

But what surprised me was what happened after.

With the time that they bought (I think) with the ritual magic exchange, at the moment when the first wave of enemies rushed and finally got close to the wall… Tsige once again began their aria for ritual magic.

Moreover, this time it is 8 shots.

You normally have to take distance from each other when using ritual magic, or it will interfere with each other and not activate -that or it self-destructs.

Moreover, they would mostly be countered or erased like the one of before.

If the opponent has countermeasures for it, they can even interrupt them mid-aria and move to the next action.

Even with that, Tsige shot them.

And they once again began to chant the next one.

Utilizing the wideness of the wall, they created plenty of distance when they positioned the mages to their respective locations, huh.

And…they all began their arias.

Are they activating many at the same time to increase the chances of one hitting?

But the counters can be set close to their own camps, and they have already gotten a grasp of all the mages.

In that case, isn’t this actually pointless and pretty fatal in terms of time?!

“4th ritual magic volley attempt. Rembrandt-san was preparing something like that?” (Makoto)

Fire, water, wind, earth, light, darkness, neutral; there’s 1 ritual magic for every element.

At the place where Rembrandt-san’s projection is showing, right in front of the Aion army, there seems to be a new ritual spell.

…Hmm, fire element.

It isn’t a new element, but more like a second ritual spell of that element has been developed or discovered.

It is not like I am sharing my senses with the location I am watching, information about the ritual magic deployed and their aria is being sent to me with a slight delay.

The winged kin, Tomoe, and Ema were making this broadcast possible with the resolve of getting stressed by the work it entails.

It will help them out in their future experiments, so they were all really motivated.

Just that, even if it was expected that it would be a bit delayed…this is still a bit slower than that.

They are most likely doing something at the battlefield.

“So they are interfering with thought transmission on that side of the wall, huh. A powerful jamming that even lags us a bit…hooh.” (Makoto)

The message I received was from Tomoe.

There’s absolutely no problems with conversing in code and signs, but there’s a powerful jamming that lags us slightly when we try to communicate by speech.

They are sealing the opponent’s thought transmission to lower their communication speed, huh.

There’s a limit to how far a voice can reach, so if the other side doesn’t have a countermeasure for it, it would be effective.

However, against a large army like that, it isn’t rare for there to be users of magic that allows them to amplify their voice and have it reach further.

On top of that, they have already experienced thought transmission jamming recently.

In Rotsgard.

Rembrandt-san was there, so it must have piqued his interest.

It is true that in the variant incident, they couldn’t waste much of their numbers to fight back the influence of the demons, and Rotsgard could only fall into great chaos. It connected into a great tragedy.

Will it be okay?

There were big shots of the four major powers at that time as well.

They faced quite the hardships there as well, so there’s no doubt they have also grown wary of those kinds of moves.

Even the 8th ritual spell, it is certain that they have read that it is a fire element attack, so even if they can’t manage a perfect counter, they can reduce the power by quite a lot.

“They are going to reach the walls already. This looks like a bad development.” (Makoto)

I was talking to the broadcast in my office room all alone.

Fortunately, there’s no plans for visits, so even if I am seen, it will be by one of the Asora people, so I don’t mind.

The Aion army seems to have returned to its normal state, they have begun to charge at quite the speed without minding the projection of Rembrandt-san.

…

Aah.

The unit that was at the forefront has finally reached the walls.

Tsige has not left any defensive units at the other side of the wall.

What are they thinking?

That’s like telling them to do as they please with the wall.

There’s archer and mage units that are shooting barrages of arrows and spells to keep them from approaching.

But numbers are numbers and they are unable to stop their charge at all.

The attack against the wall begins.

When that happens, it will be difficult to shoot attacks due to their proximity to the wall.

“Eh?!” (Makoto)

The assault unit has…

Passed through the wall.

With no preparation to attack. They simply passed through it.

Crossed the wall?

Eh?

Eeh?

I don’t understand!

“I will say this again. Tsige won’t entrust their destiny to a god. This is the path we chose, and we are already resolved to walk it.” (Rembrandt)

Rembrandt-san must be intending to finish his speech, his tone got stronger, and he pushed his right arm forward.

Ritual magic overlaps with this action of his.

The lighting and the singing as well.

The people at the place must be…really heated up by this.

One of his intentions must be to raise morale.

Ah, he plans on making it look like he is shooting the 4th shot from his right arm?

It really looks like a performance…

No no no, what about the wall?!

That’s what’s important!

“Now, my comrades! Let’s march on together! This will be the hammer of judgment towards the fools that block our path, the welcoming of our newly born nation!” (Rembrandt)

Matching the words of Rembrandt-san, the giant crimson fire became a tornado and was shot ahead from his projected right arm.

At the same time, the seven other ritual spells were shot along the fire tornado towards the Aion army, which depending on how you looked at it, it could be seen as a celebration.

All 7 known ritual spells that any specialist in that area would know, and the new fire element ritual spell.

It was a majestic view.

But…ritual magic won’t be effective against an army.

Rembrandt-san…

“Why?!” (Makoto)

No way!

The result I thought would happen didn’t become a reality.

Not only that, they all landed cleanly on the Aion army.

They were showing their destructive power perfectly… I don’t know what’s happening anymore.

Witnessing a battlefield where all norms were broken, I could only watch with my eyes nailed on the screen.

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