Chapter 200 - Inside the Walls

Days passed, with us fighting off the invaders at least twice each day, sometimes even more.

By now, our usual armor was covered in dents and permanent bloodstains. My unit walked down from the wall after finishing our shift on the fourth day since the domain fell.

During this shift, we had lost two more militia members, bringing the total to sixteen losses in four days.

With every kill and every death in my unit, I started to feel less and less remorse. Every day, I was taking human lives by the dozens and losing at least one soldier because of my orders, yet the weight of those losses kept decreasing.

On the first day, I had spent almost the whole day mulling over how I could improve and prevent such losses in the future. Now, I spent only twenty or thirty minutes analyzing my orders and the battle before moving on to other priorities.

That was when a thought occurred to me.

Was I losing my empathy?

Was I becoming like the nobles I used to hate?

Someone like Julius?

I had openly exploited the emotions of the soldiers under me during militia training, yet instead of thinking of it as something unethical, I felt proud of my work.

Even now, in the middle of all this, with every passing day, every pat on the back for a job well done, and every gain in XP, I was starting to see glory and power in all these deaths.

Just as I was struggling with my thoughts, I sensed movement near a vegetable stall, stopping me from delving any further into them.

At first, I thought it was a soldier from my unit, but as I spread my senses, I realized that, lost in my thoughts, I had failed to notice the distance we had covered.

My unit and my squad had separated a while ago. My unit had headed toward the training camp, while my squad had followed me toward the command building.

“Did you sense that?” I asked, looking at Peter.

“I do sense some movement, but I am not sure what it is,” Peter said, looking around while trying not to be too obvious about it.

“Be alert. I sensed a hint of killing intent, but their mana and positions are well hidden,” I whispered using [Battlefield Command], making sure that only my squad could hear me.

After that, we resumed walking as usual.

Over the next five minutes, I sensed multiple shadows gathering around us.

Then, as we turned right, an arrow was fired at me from less than twenty meters away.

Too close, I thought.

I did not have time to form a mana shield. Thankfully, I was carrying my original shield. I quickly took cover behind it while crouching down to leave as little of myself exposed as possible.

“Take cover!” I shouted as several arrows were fired at us from all sides.

Three attackers were ahead of us on the second floor, while the rest of the archers were at ground level.

“Barry, Silas, make a run for the exits only when you get the chance. Barry, I want you to block the forward exit. Silas, take the rear exit. Eliminate them if they try to escape,” I ordered.

While it might not have made sense to reduce my squad’s fighting strength, I believed that even without me present, they would have been difficult to kill. My squad had spent far too much time in the wild; almost every one of us was sensitive to killing intent and sudden sounds. Therefore, I was confident that we would come out on top. That was why I wanted to eliminate as many attackers as we could.

When the arrows stopped, I stood up and started moving my spear in a circle before firing three mana arcs, each aimed at one of the archers on the second floor.

Two of them managed to block the attacks, but one was caught by surprise, unaware that I had a ranged attack. The mana arc struck him in the neck, most likely killing him.

In the meantime, more figures approached from behind, while a few from the front moved to surround us.

I counted a total of twenty assassins, including the two remaining archers who had been on the second floor. They had already jumped down and were aiming at me.

It looked like they were still unaware of my sensing capabilities.

Just as I was about to inform my squad of the assassins’ positions and issue my orders, I stopped, caught in indecision.

Against shadow cats, I could order my squad without worrying about them understanding my words. Against human opponents, that was not possible. Even if I used [Battlefield Command], they would still be able to hear my orders at this distance.

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Then it occurred to me.

I formed a thin whip of mana and touched Kael, Rokan, and Garran on their backs.

Then, extending the mana whip, I struck the ground and walls near the assassins’ shadows, creating small sounds close to the assassins’ positions. That should be enough to help Varric and the rest of my squad determine the assassins’ general locations.

With everyone already on high alert, a sudden touch of mana and strange sounds near hidden enemies would definitely attract their attention.

I also decided to let my squad handle them without giving direct orders.

They were capable of making decisions on their own now, and I was confident that they could deal with a few assassins, especially after I had already revealed their general positions.

Then I stopped pretending to look around for the archers and made eye contact with the assassin closest to me.

With one quick thrust of my spear, I pierced his neck.

The assassin beside him froze for a moment in shock but quickly recovered and stabbed at me with his sword. I moved forward to dodge, but he was agile, almost like Barry.

His sword followed me, cutting across my left shoulder and chest. Even my chain mail failed to stop it completely.

Because of his hiding technique, I had underestimated his tier. At first, I had thought he was Tier-2, but now that he had used his skill and I could sense him more accurately, I realized that he was a Tier-3 agility warrior.

I could take him down much more safely if I coordinated with Varric, but Varric was helping Brakk and Oren, who were facing three Tier-2 opponents. It would have been possible for Oren and Brakk to deal with three Tier-2s on their own.

But for some reason, I could not bring myself to call for help.

It was as if my heart wanted me to fight this opponent alone.

As if, after four days of ordering people to their deaths, I was craving a fight with my own hands.

He attacked again, targeting my injured shoulder, but the cut was not large enough to slow me down. I diverted the thrust with my shield and stabbed at him with my spear, trying to take advantage of his lack of a shield.

Predictably, he shifted to the side.

He followed up by throwing a knife with his other hand, which struck me in the thigh.

This time, I was stabbed not because I had failed to notice it, but because I had been working on something.

While his focus was on my spear, I tied his leg to mine using a mana whip. Then, pulling my leg backward, I made him lose his balance.

I stabbed him in the stomach, making sure to incapacitate him rather than kill him.

Mana whips were a new addition to my mana-related techniques, developed during the siege. They gave me more flexibility, allowing me to use mana for both attack and defense while giving me a higher degree of control in battle.

They were also another attempt of mine to create a well-rounded combat skill based on mana.

As soon as I took down the assassin targeting me, the surviving assassins stopped fighting and tried to escape.

In response, my squad threw spears at them, with Rokan, Daren, Kael, and Varric hitting their targets.

While the others escaped, I looked around and saw that my squad had killed two more in close combat. Their bodies were lying near us.

Ahead of me, Barry took down two more with his throwing knives, and when I turned back, I saw Silas take down another.

Out of the twenty assassins who had attacked us, twelve were dead, one was incapacitated, and the rest had escaped.

I narrowed my eyes and, holding the spear protruding from the injured assassin’s stomach, asked, “Who sent you?”

I knew my question was foolish.

I was almost certain that they had been sent by Frosthallow, but verbal confirmation would be useful.

But surprisingly, he refused to answer.

For a mercenary, this much loyalty was uncommon. There was also the possibility that he was simply spiteful enough not to answer me after I had killed more than half his squad.

Looking at him and his wound, I decided that instead of interrogating him myself, I would rather have experts do it.

After pulling out the spear and partially sealing the wound, I placed him on a vegetable cart and decided to take him with us to the command building.

“It looked like you were enjoying that fight,” Barry commented as he dragged his kills back and piled them up with the other bodies.

Instead of replying, I just shrugged.

I wanted to deny it, but he was not completely wrong.

As a leader, fighting at the front against an unknown assassin had not been the brightest idea, but today, I had wanted to take charge instead of letting others fight in my place.

“What should we do with them?” Peter asked, looking at the bodies.

“Even I am not completely sure. I do not want to drag them with us, but at the same time, if we leave them here, the mercenaries might come back and recover them, making us lose any clues they might hold,” I replied.

“We can leave Barry, Garran, Varric, and Kael here. I am sure it will be very difficult for a small unit of assassins to take them down in the time it will take for Command to send reinforcements and a unit to collect the corpses,” Peter suggested.

I looked at Kael for confirmation, and he nodded.

Leaving the four Tier-3s of my squad behind, we made our way to the command building.

Just outside the building, I could sense chaos.

Upon seeing my squad and the vegetable cart we were pushing, one of the sergeants came running toward us.

“Sergeant Edward, was your squad also attacked?” he asked.

“Yes. What do you mean by ‘also’?” I asked, a frown appearing on my face.

“

“Four more squads were attacked a short while ago. Two unlucky sergeants died, along with almost half of their squads, because they were outnumbered.”

My eyes widened. “How are these attacks taking place? Do we know who is behind them?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. Maybe now we will be able to find out,” he said, looking at my captive.

“Well then, he is all yours.”

After that, we made our way inside and waited for Senior Lieutenant Torquatus. With everything going on outside, it was understandable that he was late.

After almost an hour, he arrived, his armor stained with blood.

“Great job capturing the prisoner, Sergeant Edward. I was able to capture two more, and now we have an almost complete understanding of the current situation.”

“Who were these people? Did they somehow sneak in from outside?” I asked.

“No. At least that is one piece of good news,” he replied, letting out a sigh of relief. “During the interrogations, we discovered that not all the mercenaries had attacked on the first day. Some of them had stayed hidden and posed as commoners, only to strike now.”

I frowned at those words.

While it was good news that Frosthallow had not been able to sneak people into town, if these were hidden forces, then it was possible that these types of attacks could happen again.

It was as if the lieutenant had read my thoughts because his next statement answered my question.

“By interrogating them, we should be able to uncover some of their hiding spots, but it will not be a guaranteed solution. These mercenary units appear to be working independently.”

“Then what is our plan to counter them? These random attacks could be highly demotivating to the militia. Today, they attacked only sergeants, but what happens if they start targeting random militia soldiers?”

I did not need to explain to the lieutenant how bad such a situation would be.

“That is why you and your selected group of soldiers will be undertaking your first mission outside the town’s walls.”