Chapter 83: Not One Step Back – Part 2
Yunia is the only one of us that trained in how to manage an army, Alissa is the one who has the most experience with commanding troops, and Hana is the one who's the most used to being a grunt. Yunia has no confidence in herself, asking to be only an advisor and giving
command; Alissa absolutely hates being a commander, so she also wants a position like Yunia's; Hana accepts leading a small squad, but she'd be out of her depth with anything larger than that; Ciel's job is to keep the harem safe, so I don't want to add any more to her workload; Lina, Roxanne, and Aoi are complete newbies at this, so they wouldn't be reliable leaders.
"I could try to lead. They aren't alive, so it's no problem if they die, hm?" Aoi volunteers.
"The numbers of our troops are limited; I don't want to risk losing them unless necessary," I reply.
"Okay," she casually agrees with a nod. She wants to protect others, but she's still a bit too young for that responsibility.
"There are so elves here that seem like nobility, so they might be our best choice for leaders," Yunia suggests.
"We'll have to test their intelligence and their skills if we intend to give them positions of power," Alissa says.
Yunia nods and continues, "We'll have to understand if and what they eat, if they need rest, the limits of their stamina, their individual needs and wants, and anything else that might be relevant."
I turn towards Hana and say, "You'll need to spar with them."
Her eyebrows knit in concern. Even she is starting to beco tired. "Every single one?" She asks, worriedly.
"Just a few, then we'll have them spar with the others to see how they do," I answer.
"Ah, exponential growth," Lina says and nods in understanding.
I smile at her, but I don't pat her head since she's wearing her helt. "Exactly. We'll need to organize them, though."
She nods energetically, "Alright, I'll do it."
We begin inspecting the troops while Hana starts the sparring with them.
Ciel walks up to one of the commoners carrying the head of a dead soldier and asks, "Why are you carrying that?"
She snaps her head towards Ciel and answers in a monotone, "Failure."
Hana snorts loudly. Arreira is not subtle.
Ciel frowns and asks softly, "Where are you taking it?"
"Everywhere."
"Why?"
"This is a part of ."
"So… you won't drop it?"
"No."
"Never?"
"Never."
Ciel goes quiet, and the elven woman imdiately snaps her head forward again.
It's like the glowing elves are in so low CPU-usage mode where their speech capabilities were limited to allow the dungeon to run all of them in parallel.
We question them so more and learn that they behave exactly like the elentals or the golems. They're completely obedient, except when we ask them to drop the pieces of their dead kin or to retreat. They can walk back a certain distance, but they have a limit of about one hundred ters.
As we make a tally of our army, I curiously watch a glowing elf carrying a long pike and an oval shield getting pumled by Hana. I notice that he isn't carrying a sword comparable to ours, only a short, gladius-like one made for stabbing. Although he knows how to hide behind a shield and stab better than a commoner, he sucks at using his sword.
Yunia stands beside
and observes the sparring match. "Hm… elves excel at teamwork and coordination. I think that sparring with them individually isn't going to tell us much," she remarks.
"It's still a good idea to learn who are the veterans and who are the new guys," Hana points out through .
She quickly realizes that aside from the Generals and so nobles trained in the sword, all of the elves here suck at individual combat. They weren't trained for it because they're all low level, so they barely have – or had, I don't know if they're "dead" – any lee skills.
They're all from the age when the God-Rulers existed, who enforced a near monopoly of Experience through Rings of the Servant. That allowed those Rulers to gain hundreds upon hundreds of levels and beco demigods, but it also lowered the average level of everyone else.
Once the elves were incorporated into the empire, their army was reford, so neither Yunia nor Lina knows all the details about their organization. We continue questioning them and learn that they have so technical knowledge, but no actual mories. Fortunately, this ans that it's simple to reform their hierarchy because we just have to ask them about how they were trained to fight, then we assign them according to their respective roles.
The two main units of the elves are the pike and archer companies, composed of around eighty n in each company. As auxiliary units, there are the Skirmishers, who are harassnt troops that use [Vine Weapon] to conjure either arrows or javelins, and the Gatun riders, but there aren't any riders or Gatuns in this army. The elven mages don't have imperial [Ritualism] to link their mana pools together, which would've allowed them to cast huge spells, so they're spread out across the army, filling a variety of support roles. The only dedicated mage squadrons are the Engineers, who specialize in manipulating terrain, and the Elentalists, who cast low-level system magic spells from range, but they aren't reliable damage dealers.
The piken carry large oval shields which are almost as tall as themselves, and they fight in a phalanx-like formation. They're almost exclusively a defensive unit, forming a porcupine-like barrier reinforced by [Nature Magic] and nearly impossible to break through. They also use [Weaverism] to connect the minds of the soldiers together and allow them all to fight in perfect sync with each other.
The archers are the main damage dealers, wielding a variety of enchanted bows with different uses which they switch between depending on the situation. There aren't enough enchanted bows for every soldier to have one, so they rotate them among the archers to keep a steady stream of magic arrows falling on the enemy.
We have four companies of Lonlanzas, the piken; three of Arquirandos, the archers wielding enchanted bows; two hundred Skirmishers; twenty Engineers; fifty Elentalists; twenty healers; twenty archer nobles; forty pike-and-sword nobles; and thirty Generals who can use [Precognition] and wield greatswords.
There's still the option of using the hundreds of civilians as a levy, but they'd only be cannon-fodder since the enemies we're facing are actually organized and trained.
The nobles serve as elite troops, so we'll spread them among the companies and assign them the leadership of their squads. These nobles are all magic warriors like us, but they don't have any sort of enchanted equipnt. Before Aremut started producing enough enchanting gems for the entirety of the empire, enchanted equipnt was rare, so the archetype more commonly chosen by nobility was magic warriors instead of spellswords.
The Generals all have enchanted equipnt along with being partial magic swordsn. Their armor may have hundreds of little decorations, creating plenty of nooks and crannies for a spear to get caught on, but they all break apart when even just a little bit of force is applied, so they don't get in the way, and they also regrow after being removed. Quite nifty.
The troops don't need to eat, but they do need rest and sleep. Their stamina is also limited, so we set up a rotation of the active troops to conserve their energy. There are non-soldier nobles among the civilians, so we use them to form an administration hierarchy because they seem to be a bit smarter than the others.
Setting all of this up is tiring and boring work, requiring a lot of discussion among ourselves, but we mostly just follow Yunia's advice. At least there's no need for a complex line of communication since our army is small enough that we can personally respond to any problems.
We just watch as the enemy line approaches ours. The monsters don't have mages to interrupt our mages, so the Engineers disrupt the ground under the monsters, and their line instantly collapses.
The Arquirandos let loose their flaming arrows, and the Elentalists cast their own [Fire Arrow]s, together lighting a large number of the enemies on fire while they're so exposed.
The ogres enrage and charge forward, quickly getting stopped by the Lonlanzas. Their long pikes are anchored against the ground, and their shafts are reinforced with magic. Yunia says that there's a lot of debate about whether or not Ronti riders would win against the Lonlanzas, but now we have evidence that heavily-armored Ogres don't, so we can extrapolate on that.
The Skirmishers pour out from the flanks of the Lonlanzas and surround the collapsed line, then they quickly finish them off.
"Oh, level up," Hana comnts.
The numbers of enemies are too small to pose a threat to us, so we end the day without any problems.
Hana's tired, but she also demands to be fucked, so we tie up her arms and legs, then I go ham on both of her holes. After I'm done, we let her hang over the edge of the bath, like a filthy, used rag.
With the dragon satisfied, I have all the ti in the world to savor my cute fox slave.
The sudden death cries of goblins grate on my ears, tainting the experience of making love to my woman. I fuck her harder to make her moans even louder to drown out the wails of the dying monsters.
The other girls use [Bind] to open the floodgates of pleasure, savoring the Fucking of the Fox to escape the depressing atmosphere outside of our ship.
Yunia can't join in with that, so after Alissa and I recharge from our obsession with each other, Roxanne and I give Yunia so attention to cheer her up. She seems to have beco more introspective today and isn't smiling as much, so she might really need so love right now.
Lina quickly recovered from her dark mood after talking with Yunia, so getting molested by Ciel is all she needs for tonight.
"Rember to talk to us; we'll always be here to support you," Roxanne says as she pulls Yunia's head towards her modest chest.
"Is that you or Wolfy talking?" Yunia casually asks.
"That's all of us," she answers, then kisses her forehead.
Yunia blinks blankly, then looks down in embarrassnt.
"Actually, it was mostly Ciel, but we all contributed… a bit," Roxanne adds with a wry smile, making Yunia snort.
Due to our tiredness, dinner is simple but hearty. We eat a lot of at and fat to give us plenty of energy for tomorrow.
We take off our armor and try to get the comfiest sleep we can. At least tonight, the troops will manage without us. What's coming likely won't let us sleep so calmly again for quite a while.
Today is the 25th.
Aoi wakes
up since she feels like having an extra breakfast today.
"I need the mana," she says, then returns to pumping .
"Sure…" I reply with a wry smile and pat her head.
I learned [Polearm Use] with 1 point. My MP increased by 25, and my "Magic Power" increased by 15 (now 1,735 and 725). Roxanne says that the ratio of MP to "Magic Power" should stay between 2:1 to 3:1, if it isn't, then the mage's training is unbalanced.
If the ratio is higher, then the mage isn't truly learning their magic skills, reducing the performance of their higher-level spells. If the ratio is lower, then their low-level spells will be more unstable and inefficient mana-wise. This problem can be compensated for with skills like [Mana Efficiency] or [Mana Control]. These concerns don't fully apply to spellswords since they use enchantnts to make up for their lack of magical training and naturally achieve higher ratios of MP to "Magic Power."
Alissa's MP increased by 35, and her "Magic Power" increased by 20 (now 1060 and 520). She's doing well with balancing them, but she's not the most magically talented person, so her growth is slow.
Roxanne's MP increased by 60, and her "Magic Power" increased by 30 (now 2,770 and 1,160). She has a higher ratio due to focusing on [Alchemy] for a while, which increased her MP without truly learning more about magic in general.
Hana has leveled up to 42. Her [Sword Use] and [Block] increased by 1 (now 24 and 10). Her new two extra points will be put in [Reduced Mana Cost] so that she can use magic to support herself more often. Her MP increased by 50, and her "Magic Power" increased by 25 (now 910 and 430). Hana's the sa as Alissa regarding magic, though she has even less magical talent, so our secret mana training was incredibly useful for her.
Ciel's MP increased by 40, and her "Magic Power" increased by 30 (now 1,280 and 780). Ciel's high "Piety" allows more godly power to pass through her when she uses [Light Magic], giving her a boost in "Magic Power."
Lina's MP increased by 45, and her "Magic Power" increased by 15 (now 1,205 and 530). Lina's focus on enchanting gives her more MP than "Magic Power," just like Roxanne.
Yunia's MP increased by 20, and her "Magic Power" increased by 10 (now 1,050 and 520). Yunia is a well-trained hybrid, and even though she also uses a lot of enchantnts, she has a lot of magical talent to compensate.
Aoi's MP increased by 20, and her "Magic Power" increased by 5 (now 1,165 and 205). Aoi may have good magical talent, but she's young, so her "Magic Power" will lag behind for a while.
This is how our skills are:
Spoiler
'Wolf Ryder Skill Report'
'Physical'
Skill Na
Level
Skill Na
Level
Skill Na
Level
Sword Use
16 11
Spear Use
0 1
Polearm Use
0 1
Dodge
8 7
Parry
5 5
Block
2 8
Shield Bash
0 1
Battlefield Perception
5 2
Muscle Explosion
4 1
Acrobatics
8 2
Ekrano Style (creator)
3
'Magical'
Skill Na
Level
Skill Na
Level
Skill Na
Level
Sense Mana
0 6
Mana Control
3 17
Mana Recovery
10 0
Mana Efficiency
3 7
Reduced Mana Cost
3 7
Mana Overuse Resistance
0 4
Blackout Resistance
0 1
Fire Magic
1 4
Earth Magic
2 3
Water Magic
4 1
Wind Magic
1 4
Electric Magic
6 14
Light Magic
2 13
Space Magic
3 23
Summoning Magic
13 27
Blessing Magic
8 22
Nature Magic
3 18
Conjuring Magic
0 1
Spirit Magic
0 3
Illusion Magic
0 2
Golemancy
0 10
Redirect Mana (creator)
6
Sense Soul (creator)
6
Soul Manipulation (creator)
7
Godly Language
30 2
'Miscellaneous'
Skill Na
Level
Skill Na
Level
Skill Na
Level
Dancing
0 1
Cooking
0 4
Andraste Language
4 6
Dismantling
0 4
Piloting
0 3
Massage
0 1
Oral Technique
0 1
Mana Genitals (innate)
3
'Info'
Na
Wolf Ryder
Age
16
Race
Human
HP
100
MP
1735
Magic Power
725
Level
36
'Stats'
Strength
13
Endurance
16
Dexterity
12
Speed
14
Intelligence
21
Wisdom
16
Willpower
18
Charisma
13
Piety
16
Perception
16
Sanity
12 4
'Other'
Status Effects
NONE
Titles
'Nickna "Good Luck
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