Daraia just came back from meeting with the academy executives. Needless to sayall of them were total freaking over what was happening in the empire.
There had apparently been reports from watchmen near the Empire's landmarks that stated that they saw beams of light appearing all around the western regions.
Daraia wasn't surprised since that was basically everything her agents and scouts told her. It was also visible from the empire so anyone standing high enough could've seen it. Others on the ground would just assume it was some light show for a special event.
The only good thing that came of this situation was that she managed to get the Academy's full cooperation. Not only did they give her access to all their resources but they even increased the maximum people who could go rescue the final year students. The number was now 100 people which was a big difference.
It was necessary to have that much considering the scale of monsters that were currently attacking Nuaria city.
Also, they had to search for this mysterious monster that could teleport any number of monsters. Those beams of light was definitely magic.
The executives and Elite Mages came to the conclusion that a magic race might've been the cause. They were extremely powerful magic users who could learn a plethora of spells that not even humans knew of. Luckily there was a person who could confirm their suspicions.
Her name was Lyra and she was originally from the Demon World and had lived for hundreds of years.
They called her to the vice-director's office to tell them what she knew. This was the first time this had happened considering how she was an enemy of all humans. She was trapped in the academy and couldn't use her magic on the scale that she used to in the war so there wasn't any reason to be afraid of her. But the hatred humans carried for her kind didn't fade away.
She was ruled out as a suspect and was sent back to the library.
Apparently there were many monsters or creatures that could harness teleportation from what she could recall.
Creatures like Demigod Litches, Winter Elves from the Nine Dimensional Realms, or even Dark Fairies(the more sinister counterparts of Fairies that live near the World Tree).
No one had heard about these things before so they were sceptical about what Lyra told them.
They didn't have much to go on so Daraia and the executives chose to believe her. For now.
Although they are aware what kind of creatures have teleportation skills, no one would know how to go about finding them.
'So troublesome. If we don't find the thing that teleported all those monsters then a second monster wave is possible.'
Common sense would have her believe that it had to be nearby in order to use teleportation on other monsters. That was how arcane-type teleportation worked for all mages. Perhaps it was even hiding among the horde.
'All we need to do is flush it out by destroying everything around it.'
That meant that a city had to fall for them to avoid the worst outcome.
That was why Daraia called in help from her old friend, Admeera to bring her Magician Guild.
They had the necessary firepower, after all.
"Welcome back, Lady Daraia." Josephine greeted Daraia at the entrance of the guild.
She seemed to be the only receptionist in the Guild. No, she was the only person left.
"Why are you still here? I told everyone to go home and take shelter because those monsters might come through those gates."
Daraia entered the Guild with Josephine. Only their shoes clicking on the floor rang out inside the gigantic building.
"I wanted to hand this to Lady Daraia personally," Josephine stuck out a letter.
"Hmm…"
It was a letter of resignation.
"Why?"
"I plan on seeking employment at Misteltein's Guildhouse."
"You know that it's highly likely that they won't last a year as an independent Guild? Who knows if Nova's companion even managed to fulfil my conditions."
No one had informed her of what was going on there on the battlefield so she wasn't sure if Nova's companion was able to fulfil the condition.
"There are other ways of obtaining a guildhouse other than being given one by Lady Daraia. I believe that they can persevere in anything. Haven't they done so up until now?" Josephine seemed confident.
"Josephine, you've been my best receptionist for years now. I was planning on promoting you to Regional Quest Manager. You won't have to give out or stamp your seal on low-rank quests anymore. You'll be exclusively working for every S-rank party there is. You will also have the third say in subjugations and dungeon raids."
Josephine's eyes glimmered for a second but she lowered her head and adjusted her glasses.
"I still wish to work for Misteltein."
'Mixing love and work won't turn out well for you.' Daraia thought that but decided not to say it.
Was it even love? It was probably nothing more than a crush. Women—especially those who have never prioritised anything above their work before—would become slaves to their feelings. They make irrational decisions which will bring them regret in the future.
Daraia won't get through to Josephine even if she tried to persuade her so she decided to stay quiet.
They reached her office after walking for a few minutes in silence. Daraia decided to respect Josephine's decision since she didn't change it even after hearing about the promotion.
"Thanks for looking after the Guild. It must've been hard stopping that crowd yesterday, huh? All the other receptionists complained that those adventurers are a bunch of savages."
"Hahaha… We're lucky that sir Nova managed to control the situation. If he hadn't then everyone would've barged into the Guild regardless of what order Lady Daraia gave them to stay outside."
'That guy again. Why does everyone place him on a pedestal?'
As far as Daraia had seen, he was just a lucky rookie who managed to make a name for himself. Was everyone admiring him for his power alone?
No, if it was just that then there would be some who fear him and want to get rid of him. So far nothing like that had happened. Or maybe he was just so powerful that no one could actually pose a threat to him?
'Humph, that kid better not be arrogant.'
Daraia remembered his bold requests yesterday and couldn't help but chuckle.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, I'm just thinking about something," Daraia took out a bundle of documents from one of her file cabinets, "A guildhouse is something that needs a lot of management. I was planning on giving this to Nova but you're more suited to this kind of work. Give it to him or his companion."
One couldn't start a guild just like that. You need a suitable warehouse or building that can serve as the guildhouse(that wasn't necessary for Misteltein since Daraia gave them one for free), sponsors, dungeons to gain profits and most importantly... members.
All of that was in the files that Daraia took out.
"Thank you very much. I will head over there once they return," Josephine took the files with a smile, "It's been an honour working for you all these years Lady Daraia."
Daraia nodded, "Just remember that I still think the promotion is suited for you more than anyone else. If you change your mind then you're welcome here anytime."
Josephine thanked Daraia again before excusing herself.
Daraia's smile vanished as she clicked her tongue, "Fuck… Fuck…"
She went towards the window that was on the left side of her office from the door. She was looking straight at Nuaria City from where she stood.
"Fuck…"
She wanted to go there and fight with her adventurers. They were risking their lives fighting against a monster wave yet Daraia's only job was to join a rescue team and go search for the academy students to avoid another incident like this.
Today they might persevere but the next one will probably devastate everything.
'I wish my little brother could've gone to help them at least…'
"Let's just finish packing my things. I shouldn't go there due to my own feelings. I need to think about the empire."
A knock suddenly came from the door as Daraia was putting on her full plated armour and gear.
"Josephine? I thought you left already?" She shouted to the door.
-"Josephine already left, Guild Master."
"Hm?"
'That voice…'
It sounded familiar. It was a female voice that she hadn't heard in quite a long time.
"The nameless Holy Knight." Daraia said as the door opened.
A young woman wearing glittering silver armour stepped through the door. Her face was covered by her blue hood but her long golden locks of hair was resting on her shoulders.
One could see from her mouth, nose and flawless skin alone that she was beautiful.
"What brings you here, Nameless Holy Knight and leader of Dead End? Didn't you have more important business to take care of?"
"I can hear the sarcasm in your voice, Guild Master. Please call me Alice. The title given to me is too long."
She removed her hood revealing her face.
One of her eyes was closed and a noticeable scar was cut through it. But her other eye shone as brightly as the sun and her golden locks of hair.
She had eyes that was reflecting the light entering the room through the window.
Daraia could now see why she was nominated to be part of the Top Ten Beauties of the Empire. Alice was gorgeous, even more than those noble women Daraia always met at balls and parties.
"Where were you?"
"I got in touch with an old friend… a very old friend," a warm smile appeared on her face as she said that, "I apologize for my absence. If there are punishments then I'll gladly—"
"Forget it, Alice. Will you join the subjugation? I'm certain with your intervention that we'll be able to eradicate those monsters quite easily."
"I was only planning on only intervening if there's no other choice, Guild Master. It seems like the other adventurers along with Cameria have the subjugation under control."
Alice was the most powerful person in this entire empire if one were to take out the Great Nobles in the equation. Of course, Daraia wasn't sure how strong she actually was, only that she was above level 50(which few were able to reach even as SS-rankers).
If she went towards the battlefield then their victory was assured.
"Who's leading the subjugation force? I'd imagine that there are multiple leaders since they are such a large joint party."
"Red Storm, Misteltein, and a few others are leading the attack team."
"Misteltein?" Alice's eye slightly widened.
"They are a new party that managed to become high-level adventurers in just a few months." said Daraia since she assumed that Alice hadn't heard about Misteltein before.
"Oh, I see… Misteltein, huh…" Alice muttered as she stroked the pale green sword at her hip, "A lot of interesting things have been happening while I was gone…"
"Where is Guild Master going? You wouldn't still be here if you were going to fight with the others."
"I need to go to a dungeon in the Fairy Province's nation."
"Eh? Why?"
"That dungeon is the cause of all this. The people who went there are in danger of initiating another monster wave."
Daraia suddenly felt a vibration coming from outside. She looked at Alice and noticed Alice looking at her as well.
'Again with these vibrations…'
The last time she felt a vibration was right before hundreds of monsters appeared near the empire.
Both Daraia and Alice ran towards the window thinking it was another monster wave.
"Huh?"
Once on top of the rooftop they were able to ascertain what was responsible for that vibration.
They saw a red ring of inferno landing on the city and causing utter destruction. Pillars of flames rose to the sky and slammed down, causing multiple vibrations. Daraia could make out a lot of buildings being absolutely destroyed that spell.
A large area of the city was levelled just like that. The magic circle which was the cause of that was dyeing the empire crimson.
"Guild Master, did you seek assistance from the Elite Mages?" Alice was shocked as her eyes couldn't pull away from the destruction.
"…." Daraia's eyes and mouth gaped.
She was a pretty calm and collected person even in battle. Nothing could stop her from fighting and assuring victory, even losing her cool.
But the fact that a simple A-class adventurer was casting an 8th-rank spell—that only a handful of Elite Mages could do—was enough to make her speechless.
She couldn't even speak.
"If it's not one of our own then it must be an enemy. An enemy capable of casting [Fire Arena] is bound to be dangerous!" Alice unsheathed her sword with an impatient expression.
"No, that isn't an enemy…"
"What? Then who is that?"
Daraia said with a tired smile, "Not only is the leader of Misteltein a monster but his companion transcends all common sense we know about magic—"
◇◇◇
'Elora is really amazing. If Freya were here then she wouldn't believe her eyes.'
Arnold thought to himself as he cut down another monster. He had been fighting the marching monsters for an hour by now with no end in sight.
The three titan monsters were still moving slowly and observing the battle.
Strategies to initiate a pincer had already been set in motion. All he had to do was return to the group.
"What is that?" Galadriel asked after running up to him.
She was covered in blood and guts.
She had been a great help in fighting the monsters. Her job was taking care of the smaller monsters since he was more suited to fighting the bigger and stronger monsters.
"That's a spell called [Fire Arena]," he decided not to say who was casting it since it didn't matter at the moment, "That's our sign to fall back to the wall. The pincer will begin after that spell falls."
"Isn't that spell big enough to engulf this entire district!? Then we should hurry!"
"Hold on, we need to make sure there aren't any stragglers. Illusion magic will be used to lure the monsters towards the southeast."
"Stragglers? Ah, found one!" Galadriel suddenly bolted past Arnold.
The creature she was trying to chase looked oddly familiar.
Arnold narrowed his eyes tot get a better look and noticed its disgusting squirming body as it wiggled on the ground with its chubby legs.
"That's a full grown parasite. Shit, these things are coming out of the sewers to feast on all the corpses."
In fact, the one they spotted was trying to go into a human corpse.
It was better not to fight them. There were probably thousands that managed to reach adulthood even before he came here.
Galadriel cut the parasite down fairly easily.
"Let's go."
Galadriel nodded.
◇◇◇
Some of the adventurers who were part of the pincer group already left to take their positions.
"Where have you been?" a tall woman, roughly around 2.3m stood in front of Arnold and gazed down at him menacingly.
She kind of reminded him of Crull a little with her tanned body and muscles. She also wore minimal clothes. Arnold wasn't sure if her breasts were real or just chest muscles since everything about her was muscles. Her thighs, arms, neck and back.
Maybe she was also a warrior from that tribe.
Arnold glanced at her before he replied, "Clearing out wanderers while all of you were observing everything from afar where it's safe while the mages did all the work."
The attacks were still ongoing but he could spot multiple mages trying to catch their breath.
"Oi, we only need to do the pincer attack! The others will handle the rest!"
"I get it. Where's Cameria? We should've started moving by now." Arnold looked around but couldn't spot her.
"Some monsters managed to infiltrate the wall from inside the city. Cameria went there to give orders to clear the sewers using fire magic."
"Were they parasites?"
"Yeah. Big, lumpy worms with saw-like teeth."
"If she orders them to use fire magic to clear the sewers then this city will have no hope of recovering their water system unless the entire city's pipes are replaced."
"We don't have time to look for other solutions—"
"Oh! You're back!" a familiar voice called out to Arnold, interrupting the tall woman.
He looked over and saw a brown-skinned Elf waving at him.
"How did it go?" Cameria grabbed his shoulders when she reached him, "You didn't get injured, did you?"
"Uh, no."
'What's up with the sudden concern? You were laughing in my face because of the things I said at the guild.'
He decided not to ask. She seemed to have done a full 180.
"Ignore my companion. Sugal, shouldn't you be getting into formation? I still have a few things to do before we can join everyone down the wall."
"Tch," the muscle woman called Sugal clicked her tongue as she put her waraxe over her shoulder and walked away.
Cameria looked at her back for a while before turning back to Arnold, "Your companion really amazed us all, you know? To cast a spell that caused this much destruction," Cameria looked at the landscape that had turned to pure ice.
Arnold wanted to say "I told you so" so bad but held it in. No one would've believed him no matter how much he tried to convince them anyway.
"It's almost time," Cameria looked at the sky as she murmured.
"Yeah."
Once the spells falls then the pincer group had to attack the monsters from behind in full force. Arnold wasn't planning on staying any longer than this since he managed to stretch this out far enough.
"Hey," Cameria suddenly spoke again, "When this is all over why don't we go out and celebrate? Just Red Storm and Misteltein."
"You see those titan monsters, right? Taking care of all this is going to take a while."
"We'll be fine. We have you and Lucri as backup, after all. Now I know I can go all-out without worrying about who will fight with us." Cameria put her hand on his shoulder as she was about to walk past him.
"I'm not going to fight with you, Cameria." He pointed at the titans, "Those things need to be dealt with. I'll only join the pincer once those things are taken care of."
She smiled wryly, "I expected as much. Haa, there really was no point making you a leader if you don't lead the others with us. But, I guess that's a trait you have. Don't worry, I'll cover for you if the Guild Master gets angry that you left your post," She approached Arnold, "I'll make sure the guild promotes your party for your deeds. I hope to fight beside you as an SS-ranker one day."
Then she walked past him. He noticed a smile on her face as she looked back at him.
'Oh, Cameria…' Arnold's expression didn't change even though he was just given approval by an SS-class adventurer—something no one gets easily, 'If you die today then your blood will be on my hands.'
Arnold pulled out his sword, prompting the people to gaze at him.
Nearly every adventurer here was looking at him with sparkling eyes and determined faces. They gathered around him to listen to what he was about to say.
"I'm not going to say something like 'Let's die to save this empire'. Dying was never the point of this subjugation, victory was," he looked at the city, "Things have been lost but we still stand here today. If we're still standing then there is hope that we can emerge victorious."
Arnold pointed his sword at the biggest monster of the titans.
"I'm going to sever that Hydra's heads and bring it to our Guild Master Daraia of House Eusyria."
"OOOOOOOH!!!"
A thunderous applause rang out as everyone cheered.
Arnold walked towards the edge of the border wall. Everyone's eyes—including the S-class adventurers and the mages from the Magic Guild—was on him.
Elora wasn't here since she was part of the mage units who needed to attack from afar.
Well, he wouldn't want her to go with him since it was dangerous.
"As long as Misteltein is in this empire, no monster is impossible for me to defeat. The cannon fodder are irrelevant if I get to kill the strongest monsters."
He said as he pointed his sword at the S-rank monsters.
◇◇◇
Using the power of his skill, [Speed Of Sound], everyone watched as Nova shot towards the three titans with astonishing speeds.
Every man and woman here gained renewed vigour. The fatigue from before the battle even properly started seemed to have faded as everyone got ready to attack with him.
But the battlefield suddenly went quiet.
A sea of flames was all that engulfed the city. This sight in itself was spectacular to look at.
However, seeing a Hydra—one of the only three S-class monsters in this subjugation out of the hundreds of other monsters—fall was enough to make everyone speechless.
All three its heads fell without having a chance to regenerate.
The Frost Giants were assaulted by incredible force that they even fell back.
The adventurers who went into the city were helping Nova fight the monsters. He was fighting the remaining giant solo while the adventurers were fighting the other giant.
"H-He killed the Hydra—!!"
"Amazing!"
"That guy is a monster!"
Cheers erupted from the border wall. Everyone got excited as their morale was boosted.
They could win.
The monsters that were left were led towards the southeast walls since the magic raining down on them was blocking their path to the imperial city.
Bethany and Sylar couldn't believe someone could be so powerful in physical strength alone. There was no boom or light that raged from his attack.
It was pure swordsmanship and arm strength.
Although their city was lost, they witnessed the world welcoming a new hero.
"Miss Galadriel!"
Bethany noticed Galadriel walking in her direction alongside a boy.
The battle just ended after the pincer attack was done. Galadriel seemed to have been one of the people who fought in the pincer group.
Bethany ran towards her.
"Who is that? He's so strong!"
The boy next to her answered Bethany's question, "That's our party's leader, right Galadriel?"