The False Hero, Volume 12, Chapter 19

Chapter 19

----- Fenn -----

“Both feet behind the line, Soldier!” A captain walks by, yelling at the men.

Fenn checks his own feet, making sure that both were well within the teleportation circle. The last thing he wants is to leave his toes behind when he teleports.

Is that what would happen…?

Fenn had never teleported before. He had never even seen one until he arrived at the camp where Eshia’s entire army was gathering. Now, on his very first time using one, he’s going to be sent across the world to fight in a deadly battle.

The problem is that Fenn didn’t come here with the soldiers. He’s a blacksmith’s apprentice, which is where he stole his armor and weapon. He expected to be found and sent back to camp. Now that he’s standing in the teleportation circle, part of him wishes that he had been.

But it was too late now.

“Stand straight, Soldier!” The same captain stops, looking down on Fenn. “You fight for Eshia! Show some honor for King Bramir in this Great War.”

“Yes, Captain!” Fenn stood as straight as possible, but even though he was tall for a 12-year-old boy, he wasn’t yet a man.

“Don’t recognize that face. What’s your name, Soldier?”

His guts twisted. “My name’s Fenn, Captain. I, uh, wasn’t sure which teleportation circle to go to…”

“Tch. Figures. Listen up, Fenn. It’s too late to find your squad, so you answer to me now. Understood?”

“Yes, Captain!”

“Now–” The captain falls silent at the bellowing of many horns. “Time’s up. Feet behind the lines!”

He squeezes in with his men, ending up right beside Fenn.

Silence falls over the large, open prairie where countless teleportation circles covered the ground, each filled with battle-ready soldiers. Men speak, armor clanks, and the horns continue to sound, but none of it seems to reach Fenn’s ears.

The realization of his situation hits him all at once. He’s going to battle, where he will face monsters that appear in even the adult’s nightmares.

The only way to change that future is to cross over the line. In just a single step, he can leave the teleportation circle and avoid the fate he chose for himself.

That moment passes, and with it, Fenn’s ability to pick his own destiny.

Eshia’s national army, numbering in the tens of thousands of professional troops, vanishes from the prairie.

----------

“Go, go, go!” Fenn’s new captain shouts.

Fenn isn’t sure what to do, but he doesn’t need to know as long as he follows the captain.

Eshian soldiers scramble across the grassy plains, following orders from men who also scarcely know what to do. It’s the first time such a large army has been teleported across the continent to join an ongoing battle, so it can’t be helped that there would be some challenges.

The captain stops, looking around for something that Fenn can’t comprehend. That uncertainty vanishes, and the man turns toward him and the other soldiers who followed.

“We form ranks here! Every man in position!”

Soldiers jump into action, quicker than Fenn can follow. He’s tossed and turned by the sudden activity, just barely managing to keep up. When the men settle down, Fenn finds himself staring at the open grass.

Somehow, he ended up in the very front line.

I should have stepped over that line…

Sorry, mom. You raised an idiot.

Fenn’s position is a curse, but at least he has a great view of the place that will become his grave. What he sees leaves him gaping.

What … happened here?

The center of the battlefield has been charred completely black in a near perfect circle. Even without having ever been to war before, Fenn can sense that something big happened. Something important.

Where the charred circle touches the battle line, almost none of those fearsome monsters of Chaos can be seen, as if they had simply vanished in an instant.

Is that … another army? No, two of them!?

Far across plains, on the other side of that charred circle, are more troops forming ranks, just like Fenn and the Eshian army. He has no idea who they belong to, but there’s a stark change in uniform between the two armies, along with a small gap separating them.

Fenn turns left, toward the mostly empty grassland where the enemy creatures came from.  Eshian soldiers hold rank, forming a line that extends many squads in length. However, beyond his fellow countrymen is another line of soldiers, one whose armor looks nothing like their own.

Next, Fenn leans forward and looks to his right, toward the bulk of the human armies. Beyond the Eshian soldiers is yet another army, dressed in a strange garb that Fenn had never seen before. Looking closely, he noticed something else about the strange soldiers.

They’re … elves!?

Now that he’s looking for it, he can see the blue and green hair their people are famous for. But the most telling part of the elven army are the chain sickles held in their hands. No other force uses such a unique weapon in war.

So many armies, and even the elves are here! This really is the end of the Great War, isn’t it!

More horns. Fenn doesn’t know what they mean either, but the captain makes it clear for him.

“Forward!”

Fenn, along with the rest of Eshia’s national army, begins their march toward battle.

----- Lutz -----

“They’re all here.” From my [Air Step], I look out over the newly-arrived armies. “Every national power on the continent.”

Until now, the only three countries fighting in the battle were Orakio, Belfast, and Vastela, the same ones who’ve been warring with Chaos for years. All three of their armies were already on the front line, so all we had to do was combine them.

However, there’s no feasible way that any of the other countries could have marched so far west in the short time we had to prepare for this battle. Even gathering their forces in preparation to march would be difficult, considering how spread out a national army can be when not focused on a dangerous enemy.

So I had to get creative. Or rather, RAM got creative.

With the use of some ancient magic, I was able to create a web of teleportation spells that can transport entire armies in an instant. Unfortunately, it can only be used once until they’re charged back up again, so now that the soldiers are here, there’s no going back.

“Teleportations were successful.” Prince Rhys says to all the commanders. “Commencing the next phase of the battle. All newly-arrived armies, march.”

Those five armies consist of every other nation on the continent. From the beastkin country of Agrium to the final two human kingdoms, Flana and Eshia.

But it goes beyond just the usual human and beastkin countries that dominate most of the world. Both the elves and vampires are here, as well. Though I made sure to place them on opposite sides of the battlefield.

The addition of five national armies doesn't just tilt the fight in our favor, it almost guarantees a clean victory, even against these powerful fiends.

Yet despite that, the girls and I know the truth.

It's not over until I deal with the Lord of Chaos myself.

Although I'm no grand strategist, even I can see how the armies of Chaos fight in large battles. The Archfiends always lead from the back, directing the lesser fiends as their general. It's only when the battle is going poorly that they step into the melee themselves.

But the Archfiends aren't leading this battle, not when the Lord of Chaos is here. That's how we knew we'd be dealing with the Archfiends from the beginning, rather than at the end.

And that's also how we know that in order to get the Lord of Chaos to take the field, we'd need to push him into a corner.

Our solution was to blow up a quarter of their troops with a sixth-tier spell, then quickly double the size of our army. Even the fiends, as powerful as they are, can be defeated with enough firepower. And what we've brought has proven to be a severe threat to their ability to win on the field.

Severe enough that the Lord of Chaos himself will have to step into the melee to turn the tides back in his favor.

And when he does…

This war will be over.

Lumina and even Lyle have joined me in the sky, looking out over the battle. Even from a glance, it’s clear that the enemy has been hopelessly devastated, with five additional armies currently flanking them in order to cut down every last fiend on the field.

Far beyond the fiends fighting on the front line, further even than the new armies that have arrived to flank them, stands a small squad of Archfiends protecting their liege.

The Lord of Chaos is watching the very same battle as us, and he’s no fool. He understands that if he wants to turn this situation around, he has to play an ace so powerful that it can compete against the arrival of five new kingdoms.

Even though he’s so far away that I can only make out his vague figure, I feel as if the Lord of Chaos is staring at me just as much as I’m staring at him.

Come get me. It’ll be easy for you, right?

He simply continues to watch, as if the inevitable destruction of his army were an afterthought. However, someone else intervenes on his behalf.

“It appears our army is insufficient to defeat you on its own.” A familiar voice resounds in my mind. “Now that I have been granted permission by the Administrator, I shall begin the process of securing our victory. If you wish to preserve your life and the lives of the ones you lead, surrender now, Moderator Locke.”

“This voice…!” I feel my nails digging into my clenched fist. “RAM!”