Tale of Discovery

Chapter 170: Crossing Borders ; Underhanded Methods ; Arrival

"Godeffroy, go wake the soldiers up. We're going to launch the attack now."

"Understood," the robust general responds before leaving the room to carry out my orders.

"Your Highness," Yvonne voices, "Do you have any orders for me?"

I turn my head to face her before nodding my head and saying,

"You have an important task to undertake. I need you to go and form a small platoon consisting of the most loyal soldiers."

"As you wish, Your Highness," she says before leaving the room as well.

"What are you planning?" Krul inquires.

"First, it's never good to give your enemies the time to prepare for an assault. Essentially, the earlier you attack, the better are your chances of success.

"Unless it's a siege, then attacking as soon as possible is much better than otherwise. Naturally, you must have enough information about the enemy to know what you're going to be risking by doing so."

"That's a nice outlook," Krul remarks.

I shrug my shoulders before saying in a casual tone,

"It's just a simple method to increase the odds of winning."

---

"Yvonne," I say, "How has Ludovic been doing recently?"

"Much better than before," she replies, "It seems like what happened back in the council room still haunts him."

Well, that's understandable. I believe that not many would enjoy the feeling of having their necks snapped and not dying from it due to immortality.

"That's good," I simply state before shifting my focus back to the few thousand soldiers who are marching toward our next destination.

"Your Highness," Yvonne says, "Wouldn't it be better if I was marching with the soldiers as well?"

"No," I simply reply.

Hearing this, Yvonne doesn't say anything else and just looks ahead.

Currently, Yvonne, Krul, Saturnus, and Siesta are sitting in an open-top carriage along with me.

Outside the carriage, the soldiers are marching forward with Godeffroy leading them on horseback.

"How far is the closest town?" I ask Yvonne.

"It shouldn't be that far ahead," she responds, "Its name is Granada, and has a base population of eight hundred townspeople."

"Do you believe that Gallia's army would intercept us before we reach the town?"

Hearing my question, Yvonne begins to deliberate on the answer.

"That's unlikely," Saturnus says, "It would be disadvantageous for them to do so."

"Why?" I ask, curious about her reasoning.

"It's simple," she replies, "Their fort was easily taken over, so it would be better for them to increase their defenses on the more important parts of the kingdom."

She does have a point.

When facing an enemy that outnumbers you and has greater overall strength, it's better to work on your defense and make use of underhanded means.

Based on what I've seen so far, Joseph de Gallia won't shy away from doing the latter of the two, as what happened in the fort is definitely not something normal.

---

[Father, we've run into three flying ships.]

"Take them down," I reply to Gabriel's report.

[Understood.]

"Yvonne, are the men prepared?" I ask while examining the hundreds of enemy soldiers stationed outside the town.

"Yes," she replies, "Everything is set. All that's left is for Your Highness to give out the order to attack."

"I seem," I reply before turning around to look at Saturnus and Krul.

"Let's do this," I say.

I then proceed to glance at Siesta for a split-second before turning around and pulling Excalibur out of the storage ring.

Raising my right arm, I point Excalibur at where our enemies are before bellowing,

"Onwards!"

Hearing me, the soldiers begin to let out a collective battle-cry before marching forward while keeping formation.

Seeing them move forward, I use Gift to grant those within my range Immortality before turning around to face Krul and Saturnus once again.

Having discussed this prior to arriving here, Krul and Saturnus both approach me until they're both beside me.

Then, without wasting any more time, I telekinetically lift them both while using Flight to gradually float into the air.

Once we're high enough in the sky, I observe the state of the enemy soldiers.

Surprisingly, despite our attack being easily noticeable right now, they're not reacting in any way.

Don't tell me, they're already under the effect of whatever it was that converted the soldiers into monstrosities back at the fort.

To check the validity of this possibility, I use Clairvoyance to examine the eyes of the enemy, and as I suspected, they're no longer 'alive'.

Based on how their parameters are increased, our side's chance of winning has decreased.

Nevertheless, as long as this is done properly, winning shouldn't be that hard.

"Brace for impact," I say before dashing toward the enemy as fast as I can while telekinetically pulling the girls along.

As soon as we're a hundred or so meters away, I hurl the two of them toward the enemy.

Saturnus makes use of her device to kill a multitude of men by slamming it into the ground and sending energy out.

As for Krul, she simply crashed into the ground with enough force to throw the surrounding men off before proceeding to kill anyone around her using her overwhelming strength.

Now then, it's about time that I did my part.

Taking in a deep breath, I throw Excalibur upward before using telekineses to hurl it at the men on the ground while multiplying its vectors by Vector Manipulation.

Then, I utilize Godspeed to catch up with it and channeling Destruction into it while 'riding' it until it slams into the ground.

The next thing I know, a great wave of destructive energy gets released and kills a few dozen men in the most gruesome of ways.

I pull Excalibur out of the ground and examine the deceased soldiers around me who have lost different parts of their bodies.

"Glory to Albion!" I hear Godeffroy as the soldiers finally arrive.

Having already done my part, I proceed to act as a support by gifting the soldiers immortality and occasionally make use of Holy Slash whenever an opportunity is present.

Seeing the enemies getting overwhelmed in such a fashion, it's only a matter of time before they're finished.

"Stop!" All of a sudden, a man's voice reaches my ears.

Looking over at the source of the voice, I find a soldier belonging to our kingdom preventing another from killing an enemy soldier by parrying his sword.

What is this now? Don't tell me that they're starting to feel sentimental or something.

I go over there and hold both soldiers down by Vector Manipulation before asking the one who was defending the enemy,

"What are you doing?"

"Your Highness," the soldier anxiously voices, "That man is my father!"

"Huh?"

What the heck? What does- Hold on

"Where was your father living before?"

"He lived in a small town in Westwood."

Fuck. As I expected, Joseph did resort to underhanded means.

Without wasting any time, I plunge Excalibur into the ground before shouting,

"Halt! Stop attacking and retreat."

The soldiers are confused about the order and don't react for a few seconds before ultimately beginning to back away.

I prevent what's left of the 'enemy' from chasing after them by making use of telekinesis and Vector Manipulation.

Meanwhile, Godeffroy and Yvonne both make their way over to me along with the girls.

"Your Highness?" Godeffroy voices once he's gotten close enough.

"These guys aren't soldiers," I explain, "Their townspeople from Tristain who have been tampered with by the enemy."

Both Yvonne and Godeffroy have a strong reaction to my words as both of them have an expression of both disgust and horror.

"Are you sure about that?" Krul asks.

"Yes," I say before recounting what happened two minutes ago.

"The townspeople from Tristain shouldn't be too much," Yvonne says after deliberating on what I said, "So, they must've included townspeople from their kingdom as well."

As my focus was interrupted, they manage to break free from my control and directly attack us.

Just as I'm about to respond to their attack, AI's voice resounds within my head.

{WARNING: Code detected.}

The next moment, several vines protrude from the ground and coil around the bodies of the brainwashed townspeople before pulling them close to the ground.

Irene, are you still not able to detect what Code is this?

{Negative. The Code is most likely too far away.}

How perplexing.

At least, I can be sure that it is on my side from the way it has been acting up until now.

All of a sudden, two deep roars resound around us as the retreated soldiers begin to panic while pointing at the sky.

Looking up, I find two green dragons diving toward us at an incredible speed.