Chapter 241 – Breakthrough
In the case of Geass Scrolls, if the party to the contract dies, the contract itself becomes invalid.
Therefore, it was only after confirming that the contract I had shared with the Demon King had completely lost its effect that I finally realized that the Demon King had truly passed away.
“…”
At the last moment, before his death, the Demon King used all the power he had to block the enemy’s celestial magic, or rather the celestial magic weapon Gungnir, with his single body.
Thanks to this, the Allied forces were able to gain time to retreat and safely retreat to their rear positions.
However, at this point, the morale of our troops was almost at its worst.
This is because the Demon King, the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces and the spiritual leader of the Demon King’s Army, died during the battle, and the entire army suffered great damage again in this battle.
Amid a sense of crisis that the Allied Powers themselves could disintegrate in the air if they make a mistake, Ozma, who was chosen by the Goddess of Power as the new Demon King, rushed to the battlefield to resolve the chaos.
“Kaldrash!”
“Ozma!”
Ozma, who arrived at the Demon King’s army camp riding a bicorn, ran to her and hugged her as soon as he saw my face.
“I missed you.”
“… Okay.”
After not seeing each other for a while, I can feel Ozma’s face becoming gaunt.
It seemed like he probably couldn’t eat properly after hearing the news of the Demon King’s death.
I rubbed her back several times, and when Ozma seemed to have calmed down to some extent, I took her away from her arms and asked.
“I haven’t even been able to hold the Demon King’s funeral properly. Is it okay for you to stay here?”
“Ugh, everyone is fighting in the battlefield, so I can’t be sad forever. And I’m a demon lord now too.”
“Okay. Then I won’t argue about this issue anymore.”
When I said that and took a step back, Ozma nodded and wiped away her tears with a determined expression.
After watching the scene, I tried to lighten the depressed mood and briefly briefed Ozma on the battle situation, who had just arrived at the battlefield and was probably in a daze.
“According to what the scout said, unlike the first battle, this time the Elven Wood side has also suffered quite a lot of damage, so they are not showing much movement right now. This is probably due to the large human losses.”
Currently, Elven Wood’s army is made up of half elves and half other races.
This race has many people, so when they die, the empty space can be filled with soldiers of another race, but this is not possible for elves, who have a small population to begin with.
The death of each skilled soldier will be a painful loss.
Moreover, in the last battle, the enemy commander did not give the soldiers within Gungnir’s range time to evacuate and tried to kill them all along with the Demon Lord’s army, so there was a high possibility that there were many soldiers who had animosity toward the command.
‘In other words, just as we are now in a grave crisis, the enemy is also in a grave crisis.’
If you think about it that way, it wasn’t a very bad situation.
According to the testimony of the surviving soldiers, the Demon King also killed a red-haired elf mage who was presumed to be a member of the Septentrion.
It seems that the fatal wound that the Demon King suffered on his abdomen was a sign that the elf had tried to renounce himself as he died.
At that time, Ozma, who had listened carefully to everything I told him, asked.
“Then what should I do now?”
When I heard that question, I thought for a moment and then answered.
“You either retreat or fight.”
“What is your opinion?”
“Of course I would choose to fight.”
I said that and kindly explained what happens when I retreat now.
“One, the Allied Forces will collapse. They will never be able to borrow the power of the dwarves like this again. Two, if they are held responsible for losing the war, the power that the Demon King currently has could be greatly reduced. The power that the Demon King had. There are definitely people who are looking for you under the surface. Third, there is a high possibility that the nobles who want independence in the colony of Oz will revolt.”
“… Then what about when we fought?”
When I heard that, I shrugged my shoulders.
“If we win, you will be able to solidify your position as the Demon King. And the elves will have to live in the forest for the next few hundred years.”
War inevitably destroys the young people who will become the backbone of the country like expendable goods.
However, the reason why many countries go to war is that the reward they get when they win the war is sweet.
High risk, high return.
In other words, if our Allied Forces, not Elven Wood, win this war, Mayer Griffith, who started this war, will be screwed.
“Then of course we have to fight.”
“I knew you would say that.”
I grinned and handed Ozma a file album.
“… This?”
“It’s a plan to win this war.”
The last operation failed because we did not expect that it would be possible to charge a magic attack of that magnitude in advance, so this time, we planned it by carefully considering all possible scenarios.
Then Ozma, who read the contents of the file album I gave him, frowned and asked back.
“But if this plan goes according to plan, Kaldrashu, you should become an 8th rank mage, right?”
“That’s right. So I’m going to give it a try.”
That 8th rank.
***
From the beginning, I had once given up on becoming the 8th rank.
The ancient hierarchical magic that Glinda learned and the modern hierarchical magic that I learned had the same name, but were completely different magic systems.
Of course, I couldn’t give up completely, so I learned a little bit of ancient hierarchical magic with my teacher, but this was literally the same as tearing down a tower that I had worked so hard to build and building a new one.
You may have already built a tower once, but if you start building it from the rock as the foundation, it will take a long time.
So when I thought I couldn’t find an answer, I thought of one possibility.
‘Ether element’
When I think about it, the magic using this unknown artificial element was completely unrelated to existing hierarchical magic, and was a magic made up of a technique I created myself.
Since the processing process itself is several times more difficult than other elements, even I, who is called a genius, developed a magic system in a way that maximizes ‘repulsion’, which is the basic property of ether.
So, I plan to check this hypothesis from now on.
Quaaaaa!!
A nameless forest located some distance away from the Demon King’s army’s camp.
Here, I showed the 4th level ‘Explosion’, the most basic spell among the etheric magics I had developed, and waited for Glinda’s evaluation with a pounding heart.
Perhaps not in other fields, Glinda’s evaluation is extremely strict when it comes to magic, which she knows best.
“It’s amazing!”
Fortunately, it was well received.
“I knew about the ether element, but I never thought that magic using purely ether could exist like this.”
Glinda is preaching about the advanced knowledge she knows with an excited face.
To summarize what she says, it seems that the ether magic I created ironically has a very similar structure to ancient hierarchical magic.
“Originally, the hierarchical magic used by humans has a strong tendency to manipulate elements by processing them into the form they want. On the other hand, the hierarchical magic of elves tends to try to use elements of the natural world as they are. But now, Kaldrat The ether magic used by Shu is very similar to the magic of the elves.”
When I heard that, something struck me.
“That’s probably because I made up the spell as simply as possible.”
Because ether itself, which compresses mana to a high density, is a very unstable element, it was a difficult task to contain it in the form of a magic trick.
So, unlike the original magic, very little processing went into the elements, which actually turned out to be an advantage now.
“If you use this magic as the main axis, you will be able to break through the barrier of the 8th hierarchy even if you substitute elven hierarchy magic.”
Glinda said that, put on her glasses, sat down on her bare floor, and quickly started writing down a formula that even I couldn’t read with a stick.
“Is what you are doing now a process of converting elven hierarchical magic into a formula so that it can be applied to my etheric magic?”
“That’s right! I recognize you as expected!”
The look in her eyes when she answered my question like that was like that of a professor who has discovered a college student worth teaching.
Creepy!
I took a step back, feeling goosebumps all over my body without realizing it, but Glinda crawled after me, placing her hands on the ground.
“If you succeed in completely understanding this formula, Mr. Kaldrasch will definitely be able to reach the 8th rank!”
“Now, wait a minute! Isn’t there another way?!”
In her panic, I waved her hand and tried to stop her, but it was no use as her eyes had already rolled back.
“Come on! Let’s study magic together!”
“Oh, no!”
Wow!
