At dawn, an army began to rally a few hundred meters from Quantora Village. They didn't bother hiding themselves, so Quantora's soldiers immediately sounded the alarm. Troops gathered and manned the walls within minutes—they had finished preparing before the Latvin soldiers had even completed forming their ranks.
Cecile and the others were also gathered. Despite the disciplined formation, whispers of fear spread from left to right. Litmus' soldiers were trained but lacked experience. They had never fought in a real war against humans.
"Are we really going to do this?" one soldier beside Cecile whispered. The doubts quickly rippled from one soldier to another.
Cecile, Nana, Rebecca, and Elysia were deployed separately. The generals—and Seraphine—had surmised that Jonathan would try to assassinate Seraphine during the fight. So, they had secretly ordered Rebecca, Cecile, Nana, and Elysia to be on alert and scout him out.
When the battle began, Seraphine would not charge at the front as he usually did. Instead, he would stay close to one of Hiro's hosts. If Hiro spotted Jonathan, he was to alert Seraphine immediately. Once Seraphine got a lock on his position, he would unleash his greatest skill and finish Jonathan once and for all.
An hour later, an army of 5,000 Latvin soldiers had finally formed ranks as the vanguard. Siege weapons began arriving, hauled from the rear of their lines toward the front. Hiro glanced behind and realized—they didn't have any siege engines.
"Ugh… why don't we have one of those?" Rebecca cursed.
"We don't know how to make them!" one of the generals replied. "They went out of fashion a hundred years ago. Lord Seraphine or King Angus can throw stones of that size with their bare hands."
"Hah…" Rebecca could only sigh. It was true. In this day and age, society had come to rely too much on symbiotes. In war, it was no longer about soldiers—the outcome rested on the strength of the champions and their symbiotes. If a symbiote lost, the war was over. Everything else was just for show.
"We only have wooden walls… we're so dead," Rebecca whispered.
"Fear not, for I shall be with you!" Fake Seraphine declared. His voice reverberated among the soldiers. Believing it was Seraphine himself, calm returned to the ranks.
But it didn't last long.
Boulders began raining down from the trebuchets. Hiro had expected the soldiers to be left standing around like idiots, but thankfully, they didn't waste time evacuating. After all, Quantora Village only had a five-meter wooden wall. The generals hadn't even believed the enemy would resort to siege engines.
Some of the trebuchet stones were soaked in oil and lit aflame. The fiery projectiles set several houses ablaze.
"Shit! These assholes are aiming for the residential zones, not just the walls!" the soldiers reported to the general.
"Fuck! How are the citizens?"
"We should evacuate them to Daneswald! This village is no longer safe!" one soldier shouted.
"They'd never make it past the siege, you fool. Our civilians can't outrun their knights on horseback. And we can't guard them either! If they bring archers, we're finished!"
"Guh… They'll have to stay in the central plaza, then. A water mage should be able to help."
"Yes, sir. Evacuating the citizens to the central plaza." One soldier rushed off while the rest held their position behind the wooden wall.
"Cecile! Where the fuck is he?" the general barked.
"Hiro, did you see Jonathan?" Cecile asked with a worried face. Hiro shook his tentacle, he shouldn't lie. If he didn't see him, he couldn't say he saw him.
"There's no choice, then. We have to meet them head-on. As long as we know where Jonathan is, Lord Seraphine will take care of the rest." The general groaned, weighing his options.
He knew this battle would bring heavy casualties. He didn't even believe this would end the war. But in this world, war was determined by how many symbiotes you had. If Jonathan was killed, there was a good chance Latvin would retreat—or even surrender outright.
"Rally the troops! We'll meet them head-on!" the general ordered.
A horn sounded.
"Nana, lead me to Jonathan later, understood?" the real Seraphine said beside Nana. He was dressed like a common soldier, with no notable features.
"Why didn't we use your skeletons for this?"
"I can only make twenty of them now, Rebecca," Elysia replied.
Hiro felt like he had been tricked and bamboozled. Elysia had seemed so overpowered when he fought her during the dungeon break. Now, she was just a random skeleton summoner. She was so nerfed.
Elysia still had her skills, of course. If she had an unlimited supply of mana, she could summon vast armies of skeletons. However, outside of a dungeon, the ambient mana was too weak—barely enough to maintain her own body and a few spells.
The Litmus army began marching. Surprisingly, Latvin's army also started to advance. As the two sides drew closer, it became apparent that most of the enemy vanguard was non-human.
Hiro noticed some were cat-like humanoids, like Luna. Some were petite, others tall. They didn't wear much armor, and their beastly features were visible even through their clothing. Nana was visibly startled.
"What's going on? Why are beastmen on their side?"
"Aren't they war slaves? I heard Latvin used them," someone said.
"No, they didn't. There were no demi-humans at all when we left Litmus a year ago," Nana said. "Latvin's policy was to purge all demihumans."
"Well, they do now. Maybe it's some kind of treaty with the beastmen…" the general guessed.
Hiro was disgusted. Latvin was treating the beastmen like disposable fodder—throwing them into battle against Seraphine of all people.
As the armies neared, the beastmen began their war chants. Then, they charged forward in a frenzy.
"Brace! Prepare yourselves!" the captains shouted.
"But they're not Latvin soldiers!"
"Don't care! They're attacking us—we have to defend ourselves!" someone shouted.
Cecile, standing at the front, raised her shield. The battle had begun.
Thanks to Hiro's skill, Cecile was able to overpower a charging lizardman. But the horde kept coming.
Cecile led the center front rank while Elysia commanded the left flank of the army. Unlike Cecile, Elysia didn't lead from the front—she was a mage, after all. She continued summoning skeletons, one after another.
Out of nowhere, Elysia's vision suddenly dropped. It took Hiro a few seconds to realize that her head had been cut off. His heart went cold in fear, dreading the worst. Fortunately, she was still alive. A normal human would have died instantly from decapitation, but not Elysia—she was a lich.
Hiro quickly extended his tentacles, slithering across her bones and forcing her body to lie down.
"Hiro? What happened?" Elysia's decapitated head asked. Hiro slipped out of her maid outfit and regenerated an eye to scan the surroundings. Jonathan was there—he had been butchering the other Litmus mages.
Hiro slithered out, retrieved Elysia's head, and reattached it to her body while alerting the others. Elysia was classified as a mage, there is no way she could win against Jonathan in close combat. So, all he could do was force her to play dead.
Tentacles burst out from Nana and forced her head to turn toward Elysia's position. Seraphine, who was with her, immediately understood. He grabbed Nana like a sack of potatoes and demanded Hiro point out the target.
"Where is the bastard?" Seraphine growled.
Hiro manipulated a tentacle and formed an arrow, indicating the direction where Elysia had been attacked. But it was futile—Jonathan had already left and reactivated his stealth minutes before Seraphine arrived.
Seraphine searched with twenty of his guards, but All they could find were the corpses of their comrades. Nana, who had been picked up earlier, was rudely dropped to the ground. Thanks to her high agility, she landed on her foot like a cat. Hiro could tell Seraphine was barely holding back his rage—he had let Jonathan slip through his fingers once again.
"We are victorious!" the fake Seraphine announced a few hours later as Latvin's beastman army finally retreated. The casualties were high on both sides, but the worst was the utter annihilation of the mage corps under Elysia's command.
"Argh!! Fuck!!" Seraphine shouted as he kicked a random chair during the war meeting in Marissa's manor. Hiro sighed. He didn't care whether it was Ralph or Seraphine doing the kicking—he felt the same irritation and anger. If possible, he wanted to join them. His girl had been beheaded! If Elysia hadn't been a lich, even his flesh mending skill wouldn't have been able to save her. If that had happened to Nana, Cecile, or Rebecca, they would have died.
Seraphine turned to the general. "Don't mind me. Let Ralph and I vent some steam." He then turned away and screamed his heart out as he set his body ablaze, venting his fury on the unfortunate chair.
"Eh? You were beheaded?" Cecile asked as Elysia debriefed them on what had happened on the battlefield. She had been leading soldiers when her vision suddenly dropped.
"Hiro didn't tell you? I thought he could sense him," one of the captains groaned.
"The heat of battle must have distracted him," the general said.
"The mage corps Elysia led was decimated…" another captain added. "The left flank collapsed."
"Our total casualties were two thousand soldiers, while they only lost one and a half thousand," an official read from the war report. The atmosphere turned heavy as they realized they had lost this battle.
"Jonathan didn't attack anyone else... I wonder why," Cecile murmured.
"If he had, we wouldn't have survived. Elysia is a lich, so she could live without a head. But we would've died instantly."
"Hm? Hiro couldn't save you? I thought you guys were immortal. You saved me while I was pierced in my heart after all." Rodrick—the fake Seraphine—asked. Hiro slithered out and shook his tentacles. If anything happened to a host's head, death would be instantaneous. There would be no time to use flesh mending.
"We need to protect Hiro's hosts. We should gather them in one place. Now that Jonathan knows he can't find me, his next target will be the other symbiote users. That means Hiro," Seraphine said as he returned—leaving only ashes where the chair once stood.
Nevertheless, Ralph, who had materialized behind him, continued to pound and tap the wooden floor with his tentacle, making his annoyance clear for all to see. A thin strand of tentacle connected Seraphine and Ralph as he took his seat. Hiro took extra care not to let any of his tentacles slither anywhere near him. Hiro was weak to fire.
"We shall do as you ordered, Lord Seraphine," the general bowed. Seraphine, however, was uncertain about his decision and quickly corrected it.
"On second thought, don't do that. Place Hiro's symbiote like usual, but for the next battle, I will also take the field. For real this time," Seraphine said. "Rodrick, you don't need to pose as me anymore."
"Eh? What if Jonathan ambushes you, milord?"
"When that happens, I'll duel him. If you happen to see him beforehand, I expect you to do your duty—either inform me, or delay him even for a fraction of a second," Seraphine said, his resolve unwavering. The captains and generals who had been seated immediately dropped to one knee.
"The meeting is adjourned. Get some rest, tend to the wounded, and prepare for tomorrow. The war isn't over. We must preserve our strength if we want to win," Seraphine said.
"Yes, sir."
"Ugh… that was reckless," Rebecca muttered with a groan.
"This decision will lead to the fewest casualties. That must be what Lord Seraphine is thinking," the general sighed. "Two thousand good men just died today. If we suffer that many again tomorrow, we won't survive. We haven't even seen Latvin's main army yet."
"Ugh… but…"
"I'll be with him tomorrow. You will too, Rebecca. If Hiro sees Jonathan, let us know immediately," the general said, looking to Rebecca with pleading eyes. She nodded.
"Yes, sir."
And so, the meeting was dismissed, and everyone returned to their barracks and camps. The groans and moans of injured soldiers haunted the village, as Cecile and the rest of the citizens forced themselves to sleep.