"Why are you still alive? Did you get resurrected too?!"
Aura's expression, full of grievance and despair, was no less pitiful than when Frieren had made her play the violin.
On this day, she once again recalled the terror of being dominated by Nanoda.
Rewind the clock a little.
"Aaaaah! The gods be praised! We've won!"
The army of the Church of the New God, numbering only a little over a thousand, had defeated by a slim margin an enemy nearly three times their number.
The number of those who could still move was now fewer than a hundred, and among them only a dozen or so could still wield the Scripture and go about healing their comrades.
"Truly remarkable—I didn't expect your subordinates to all be so formidable."
"No, these aren't my subordinates. More to the point—you're wounded like that and you can still walk?"
"I call it: muscle hemostasis. As long as I don't take fatal external injuries in multiple places, I can hold myself together by feel."
Following behind Nanoda was Anhadī III, the single arm he had left dangling limply.
It was as if the fierce battle just now had never happened; the human and the demon walked along together in such harmony.
"Honored Protagonist Proxy! We've won! Under the protection of the new deity, we have defeated the army of the King of War!"
Hearing the voice, a monk drenched in blood came running up to Nanoda clutching the Scripture, so excited he was nearly dancing for joy.
She glanced at Anhadī III behind her and found him merely staring at that twisted, braid-like, precariously dangling arm, paying no heed to the monk's words.
"It must be the gods protecting us from the shadows. Everyone did well; the New God sees it all. Now help me treat this person—he's a precious prisoner, so just patch up his wounds a little."
Mimicking the tone of a charlatan-priest, Nanoda consoled the monk.
"No problem."
Though he didn't recognize the red-haired man, since the bishop was the child of god, then the Protagonist Proxy appointed by the bishop was the child of the child of god.
Obediently, the monk went off to treat the aforementioned "King of War."
"Ah, thank you. That god of yours, whatever it is, must be very great."
"It's the New God!"
Watching this scene, Nanoda was a little speechless—she was traveling with one lunatic, and here was a whole crowd of lunatics.
"Um, honored Protagonist Proxy, unidentified enemies are surrounding us!"
A female monk who had been standing in place without moving opened her tightly shut eyes, her expression looking somewhat tense.
It was said that some of the higher-ranking monks possessed an ability like a heavenly eye, able to detect the number and positions of people within an area; the female monk before them seemed to have just such an ability.
"Don't worry. I promised I would let you and your warriors leave."
Anhadī III displayed his goodwill.
And it was right then that a host of familiar Mana suddenly surged up within the range of Nanoda's Mana Perception.
Within one section of the Ohaly Kingdom army's encirclement, a band of uninvited guests had broken in.
"Why are Humans mixed in with a Demon Race troop attacking us?!"
"Watch out for that pink-haired demon—the weapon in her hands changes on its own!"
"Threads! There are invisible threads!"
"What's going on—my body won't obey me?!"
The formerly orderly marching column was breached from the rear.
Led by Hend, Linie, and Draht, a vanguard of a modest number of human mercenaries, plus territory-folk wielding farm implements and tools, mingled with a few Demon Race soldiers.
To the rear was Aura, wielding the Magic of Obedience, along with her aide Hermet leading several knights and a dozen-odd fully armed members of the Demon Race.
Their combined fighting strength came to fewer than a thousand.
And yet a host of such size had torn open the Ohaly army, which numbered in the tens of thousands.
Aura would first unleash the Magic of Obedience within a certain range to harass the enemy's movements; ordinary common soldiers would be directly controlled, while those with somewhat stronger willpower would also be affected by the Magic of Obedience and lose their ability to fight. Aside from a small number of tough customers who could force themselves to keep fighting, they would still be knocked flat upon encountering the vanguard.
An assembly-line style of combat: under its slow advance, the Ohaly soldiers fell in row after row.
"Excellent—that's the way!"
Aura once again wore an expression brimming with confidence; those legs of hers, gone a little weak from running, found fresh strength instead.
She was already fantasizing: after seizing the army before her, she would head straight to Gaderia, use her troop strength as a threat to directly force that old fellow Qual to join up; then she would muster Gaderia's army, join strength with strength, charge straight back to the Kinton territory, smash every one of those damned undead to smithereens, viciously humiliate that little shrimp of a demon before killing her—and at last establish a great Empire belonging to Aura!
"Huff... A... huff... Lady Aura! Huff—aren't we... pushing in too deep?"
Her aide Hermet panted heavily; having spent years sitting and handling administrative affairs, lacking exercise, he couldn't even run as fast as Aura.
"No need to fear. My Mana Perception hasn't sensed any powerful enemies yet—they're all just small fry."
"The enemies are numerous... huff... there will come a time... when our vanguard... grows weary."
"No need to worry. The enemies we strike down now become our aid after a while."
"All right."
For some reason, Hermet always felt a touch uneasy. Ever since Lady Aura's defeat in the Kinton territory, her mental state seemed to have developed some problems.
Was it because she'd suffered a similar trauma before? He just kept feeling that Lady Aura had become very agitated.
After the fighting had continued for a while, Hend retreated from the vanguard and loudly sought instructions.
"Lady Aura, our stamina is just about spent! What do we do now?"
"Fall back—it's about time anyway. Those fellows we defeated should have already become my loyal servants by now!"
Forcibly enduring the aching soreness in her legs, Aura turned her head to look back.
"Danger! Lady Aura!"
A scorching-hot fireball came flying over. Seeing this, Hend hurriedly swung the chipped blade in his hand and threw himself forward to meet it.
The fireball was nearly as large as Hend was tall; its blistering heat had Hend grimacing and baring his teeth before it even drew near. "Hraaah!" A slash that used every ounce of his strength cleaved open the Mana-laden fireball; the blade was melted and caved in for more than half its length, glowing red all over, and sparks splattered onto his clothes. Hend hastily flung the sword away and rolled several times on the ground before he managed to put out the flames.
"How is this possible?"
Aura, whose gaze had been fixed on the enemy troops falling ahead and to both sides, suddenly realized that an enemy column come from who-knows-where had already surrounded their rear.
Perhaps the wounds inflicted by the vanguard had, on the contrary, jolted the opposing soldiers awake; many of the Ohaly soldiers draped in the Magic of Obedience merely stood rooted in place, faces full of pain as they struggled against it.
And the Mages within the local army, who had been concealing their Mana all along, now appeared—just as their own side was showing signs of exhaustion—together with the column flanking in from behind.
"This is bad. Lady Aura, we're in danger."
Hermet regretted his loose tongue—what a jinx he was.
"Don't panic. No formidable foe has shown up yet. Have the vanguard fall back a little, surround and protect me well, and we'll cut our way back out the way we came!"
Aura, however, showed not the slightest sign of fear; instead she revealed a ferocious grin.
There's still a chance to cut our way out... still a chance...?
Then that grin, like a face-change in Sichuan opera, was replaced by terror.
An all-too-familiar Mana had suddenly appeared within the range of her Mana Perception.
"Oh no! I'm in danger!"
Letting out a strange yelp like a conditioned reflex, Aura had never been this panicked before.
____
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