Chapter 36: Stampede! Time to become a hero!

“Hm… Those bandits certainly had more loot than I expected.” Count Shadowstep called an appraiser to evaluate some of the loot taken from their hideout. Shadowstep had recouped his debt from John’s trial just from these.

“Milord?”

“Ah, Rodrick! How is it going? Have you told Duke Slane and Duke Bron about our three mages and the five merchants?”

“Yes. I have messaged them, Milord. They said they would support you. And my name is Rodrique, Milord.”

“Really? Good! Do they have any requests?”

“Yes. They wanted Alicia and Elidranthia.”

“They were so greedy! Bah, just send these new guys to Duke Bron and Duke Slane! I don’t need them! I just need one merchant.” Count Shadowstep groaned. He never wanted to keep them, anyway. Alicia and Elidranthia are enough to fill all magic tools in his territory. So, adding more would only incur unnecessary expenses.

“I shall inform them of your word, Milord.”

“Good.” Count Shadowstep continued with his report. Despite the money, he was not particularly happy. Here, in this rural area, wealth held no purpose. He had high hopes for Alicia and Elidranthia. Thanks to them, over 80 percent of his magic tools were active, and he could expect more once they graduated.

Count Shadowstep wondered how he should expand his territory now that he had excess mana. What magic tool should he buy from the Mage Union next? Should he create a new village or should he expand the existing ones? Many choices, all with their downsides.

“Thank you, Milady. With this, we can prepare for the stampede.” Meanwhile, a soldier kneeled to Eli at the barracks.

A stampede. Eli had read about it, but she had never experienced it before. The only comparison Eli could make about this phenomenon was something like the mice outbreak that happened in Australia on Earth.

However, if such things applied to monsters such as orcs, then it was a huge problem!

“I don’t think I have ever seen a stampede. What does it look like? Is there anything I could do to help?” Eli found Jadenbale discussing the shifts at headquarters with the other captains. With five knights gone, their shifts had to be covered by someone else. It was a minor thing. As a border town that faced a monster outbreak at least twice a year, Shadowstep had over 100 knights available.

“There is nothing more assuring than having you as a healer at our back, Lady Elidranthia. I must insist that you stay at the rear.” Jadenbale gave a military salute.

“Don’t worry, Lady Elidranthia! I will blow them all away with my magic!” Alicia puffed out her chest. But hearing about the stampede made Alicia wonder, “The talk about stampedes has been going on for some time now, but it hasn’t happened. When will it actually happen?”

“Stampedes usually happen every other season, twice a year. They certainly came a bit late this time.” Jadenbale answered.

Yet another thing different from the webnovel. Alicia recalled the stampede was supposed to happen before she completed the lesson with Alexandraine (she was wrong. It happened just after she completed it.), but the stampede hadn’t happened even after the incident with John had concluded.

“So you mean they could happen anytime now?” Eli frowned. She recalled that there had been casualties during the bandit assault and asked, “Are we going to be okay? There were casualties when you assaulted the bandit hideout, right?”

“You have nothing to fear, Milady. We merely lost five knights during the bandit raid. There are still a hundred knights manning the gate. In fact, we just finished sorting out the missing shifts they left behind. Moreover, since Miss Alicia will also help us, I am sure we won’t have to mourn for our comrades in this year’s stampede.”

As if on cue, alarm bells rang from the wall, signaling to the knights that they had visitors. The stampede had come.

Jadenbale gave a knight’s salute before leaving. “Alicia, could you help us at the gate?”

“Sure!” Alicia skipped behind her father as they went to the gate. Eli’s cute lips curved into a frown. She knew her job. She was a medic while Alicia was artillery, but she couldn’t help feeling envious of how many people valued Alicia.

“If you would like, Lady Elidranthia, you could watch the battle from the watchtower. It is usually reserved for commanders, but if you promise to behave, I believe other captains would not mind.” Jadenbale whispered. “Ah, but anything more would risk your life, Milady. I hope you understand.”

“Alright.” Elidranthia nodded. She was not a foot soldier anymore; she was a commander—or at least she would be—and a commander needed to stay behind to command. Jadenbale had read her and assigned her an appropriate post.

Among the soldiers manning the gate, Alicia was the most noticeable with her maid outfit. The forest shook as monsters emerged from the trees. Several monsters with ashen skin came out of the forest. Giants taller than Alicia, who stood on the wall, wielding a massive wooden club, lumbered toward the gate. The earth trembled with their every step.

“Ballistae! Fire!” a captain shouted. Alicia peeked to her side and found John manning the ballista with four other soldiers. The bolt flew from the oversized bow, skewering the giant in the chest. A giant staggered. Three other javelins followed the first, all striking that giant in the chest and stomach.

The giant cried out its death throes, then the earth trembled as it fell. Its body glowed white before disappearing, leaving behind a fist-sized rock. Black monsters—twice the size of even the largest knight—rushed forward. They were Black Orcs. Unlike the giants, they ran, leaping like locusts, over two dozen of them charging toward the gate.

“It’s your turn, Alicia.” A knight nudged Alicia. She was new—moreover, underage—so a knight had been assigned to direct her. “Use your best spells there.”

“On it!” Alicia raised her hand in a banzai pose. Mana gathered into a fireball, growing and swelling atop her palm, radiating warmth into her surroundings.

Other, more experienced mages cast their spells. Plumes of smoke burst from the ground like rocket launchers, followed by a rain of arrows from the knights. The Black Orcs shrugged off the arrows sticking from their bodies as they dashed for the gate. Once they reached it, they leapt, their claws digging into the wooden walls as they climbed like spiders.

Behind them, purple monsters arrived in the hundreds. They looked like some illegal experiment gone wrong. Dozens of eyes sprouted across their bodies. Two pairs of arms jutted from their backs, while their two pairs of legs scuttled like spiders across the battlefield. These constituted the main bulk of the stampede.

Despite their grotesque shapes, these monsters were the easiest to kill. A single arrow was enough to knock them down and bleed them to death.

Elidranthia watched the battle in horror. Sir Jadenbale had always bragged that they had never lost to a stampede, that casualties were only ever in the single digits at most, making it sound as if stampedes were something trivial. But she didn’t think they were winning.

They needed more ballistae. They needed more mages. More of everything.

“Fire!!” Alicia released her spell. A massive explosion rang through the battlefield, erasing everything within its thirty-foot radius. The blast was strong enough to knock unprepared soldiers off the wall. But there were no such things as unprepared soldiers here in Shadowstep.

“Ready your spears! Knock them off the wall!” captains shouted. Alicia’s spell had cleared a part of the battlefield. Only two more giants and several Black Orcs remained. The giants could easily be dealt with by the ballistae, but the orcs were getting a bit too close. They couldn’t let them gain a foothold on the wall, so the soldiers picked up their spears.

The moment an orc peeked its head over the top of the wall, multiple spears jabbed into its skull. One had the misfortune of eating a bolt from the ballista straight to the face. The monsters ran through a meat grinder. Their numbers dwindled as knights and mages exterminated them with extreme prejudice.

Two hours later, the knights cleaned up the remnants of the monsters on the battlefield. They were monsters; they did not retreat.

“We won!”

“Waa!!” The knights cheered as the last arrow reaped the life of a purple monster that had crawled toward the wall.

“Today was most fortuitous. No injuries! I think we set a new record today.” Jadenbale laughed from the watchtower. The cheer was so contagious that Eli couldn’t help but join the soldiers from the watchtower. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“It was all thanks to Alicia, wasn’t it? I wonder what will happen to this territory when we go to school next year.”

“Hm? Ah. No need to worry, Lady Elidranthia. Even without Alicia, we could still win. This stampede was just like any other. Some may get onto the wall, but we are well equipped to deal with them. Look at those spears ready to skewer them. Look at the explosives and firebombs our mages have made in their free time. We just didn’t use them because it wasn’t necessary yet. Normally, we would have set traps, but we were a bit overwhelmed this year with the bandit hunt.”

“I see.” Eli nodded, convinced that the knights were not putting on airs and could actually beat the monster outbreak with certainty even without Alicia.

“Yay! We won!” Alicia cheered with the knights as John hoisted her up in the air. The indulgent Alicia reveled in the praises. Eli clapped with them, she was glad that nobody was injured.

“I guess I have nothing to do here…” Eli said.

“Please rest assured, Lady Elidranthia. Just because your power was not needed at this moment doesn’t mean you are not important. As the saying goes, an idle doctor means the populace is healthy and prosperous!”

“Lady Elidranthia, I heard you are also an exceptional earth mage. Might we be so rude as to ask milady to oversee the workers repairing the wall? While it was fortuitous that there were no casualties this time, I am afraid Alicia was less elegant with her spells and might have damaged the walls more than the monsters did,” Anther captain said, sensing the rivalry between Alicia and Elidranthia. Jadenbale hopped on the idea.

“Yes, you are absolutely right, General. Ahem. Milady, if that does not trouble you too much, we would appreciate the help of earth mages with the repair effort.”

“Of course! You can rely on me! I will repair the wall and will also improve it! Let’s make it taller! With stone towers that could house ballista and trebuchets instead of just these wooden watchtowers!” Eli beamed at the idea.

“Please consult with the site managers and Lord Shadowstep if you wish to make modifications, Lady Elidranthia. Forgive my rudeness, but sudden modifications might disturb the soldiers’ deployment.” The captain bowed.

“Of course… I simply wondered if we could improve the defenses of Shadowstep. I shall not ignore the counsel of those who are more experienced in this.”

“Thank you for your understanding, Milady. Shall we return to the mansion? I am sure a feast is waiting for you and the rest of the soldiers at the barracks. We have achieved a perfect victory today.”

“Let’s go.” Eli climbed down the wooden stairs. Together with Alicia, she returned to the mansion.

Little did they know that the stampede was not over. Not by a long shot. In the darkness of the night and the forest, multiple eyes observed, waiting until the shadows were on their side.