Golden Experience

“I’m grateful that you’ve come. Please, have a seat.”

After introducing himself at the lord’s mansion, the commander was brought to a reception room. While he had at least removed his helmet, he was offered a sofa while he still wore his armor. He wasn’t even asked to hand over his sword. This would normally be a severe breach of protocol.

“Please leave us. If I need anything, I shall ring the bell. Otherwise, no one is to come near this room.”

The lord cleared the room, then had a knight stand guard outside the door. He may have been the army commander, but it was unheard of for a noble to speak alone with a military man who had no noble blood.

“You’ve seen them, haven’t you, commander? Those insects hovering in the eastern skies. Do you believe they have something to do with the catastrophe? Ah, there’s no need to be on guard with me. I’ve heard the news from the capital about its birth.”

The commander let out a sigh of relief. It would have been difficult to discuss the handling of those monsters without being able to touch on the topic of the catastrophe. Based on the prime minister’s response, he may have to abandon this city in order to focus on defeating the catastrophe first. He didn’t know whether the lord would agree with that decision, but being able to share information freely was a huge boon.

“If they are unrelated to the catastrophe, then your forces will have to prioritize the catastrophe over my city. Am I wrong?”

“…I can’t say anything for certain yet. At present, I have relayed the situation here at La Colline to the prime minister, and now I am waiting for his orders.”

“I see… Regardless, I am thankful. Given your position, I’m sure you would like nothing more than to pass right through here and get to Erfahren even one second faster.”

“Not at all, this is simply the situation. We only do what we must…”

“My apologies…”

While things were quiet right now, the commander had visited this city before in the past, and he had felt that it was both a peaceful town and also full of energy. It was far from monster territory, and it was located at the intersection of many roads, which meant that it was easy to start a business. However, none of that had explained how bright its residents were. No matter how ideal the location was, if those in power were greedy or tyrannical, the people could never have smiled the way they did.

He felt it again when seeing the lord’s mansion. Although this would be his first time meeting directly with this particular lord, he noticed that the size of the estate was far smaller and the number of knights on guard far fewer than what he would expect of a typical local lord. The number of servants appeared to be comparable, but there should have been many more knights. Were those knights off on some errand, then? In all likelihood, they were out patrolling the city, helping to assuage the citizens’ fears, and monitoring the status of the monsters. The commander had come to the mansion immediately when he was summoned, but if he had delayed, perhaps he would have seen those knights cooperating with his men.

The commander wished to cooperate as much as possible with this lord within the limits of the authority he had been granted. Prime Minister O’Connell wasn’t a particularly close-minded person, but he was responsible for the health and interests of the entire kingdom. If it came down to it, he could be forced to abandon this region in order to safeguard the country. The commander himself was not just a soldier but a general tasked with defending the land. If the prime minister made that decision for the country’s sake, he would follow his orders without complaint, resolutely turning his back on this city in order to accomplish the mission. And the lord understood all of this as well.

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“I know you and your men must be exhausted from the long journey, and we would like to show our appreciation for your efforts, but the situation won’t allow it. This is La Colline’s greatest shame.”

“No, please, you needn’t lower your head to me. As you said, the situation is what it is…”

Suddenly, a clear knock came on the door. Since it almost sounded like a door knocker, it must have been one of the knights using the back of their gauntleted fist. The knight had been told not to let anyone through, but he was now deliberately interrupting them. The commander and the lord exchanged glances.

“What’s wrong? Did you need something?”

“Sir! We’ve spotted a messenger from the expedition army. There may be an emergency for the comman—”

Right then, a dull sound rumbled through the mansion, almost like a bolt of lightning had crashed down far away. More unidentifiable noises sounded intermittently, giving rise to a feeling of uneasiness.

“What was that?! What happened?!”

The door promptly opened accompanied by a panicked shout. “Pardon me! Commander! The wasps have begun to move!”

Which meant whatever those sounds were, they had provoked the wasps. What could have produced those noises?

“My deepest apologies, my lord. I must go out to the city.”

“I’m sorry; we’re counting on you! My knights are also out there, and they will cooperate to follow your orders! Use them as you need!”

“You have my thanks! Until we meet again!”

After leaving the mansion, the noises became much louder. He could see smoke rising into the sky from the east. He wanted to hurry over there as soon as possible, but all the citizens running around panicked made that nearly impossible.

The commander somehow pushed his way through the crowds and ran through the city, noticing that there were people other than screaming residents mixed into the confusion. They were members of his army. The youngest soldiers. They were on the support team, and these ones had been stationed in the eastern side of the city. It exasperated him that they weren’t helping the people around them, but they had never received any formal training either. Until very recently, he could have also expected them to have been caught up in this panic.

“Hey! What’s going on?!” he yelled at a soldier he was able to catch.

“A-Ants, sir! The ants are shooting rocks…”

“Ants? The ones the wasps were carrying?!”

“Yeah, those ones! Those ants fire black rocks… that suddenly explode… at the city… fire—”

Right, the wasps were carrying ants. He had frivolously thought that they had attacked some ant nest somewhere and taken ants as prizes. He didn’t really think about what the relation between the ants and the wasps were.

He was completely wrong. That wasn’t a swarm of wasps holding ants. It was a swarm of wasps transporting ants, in order to orchestrate an attack from the sky.

The commander had never heard of monster ants that could shoot exploding rocks. They should be a completely different race from the wasps. But there was such a huge swarm…

“That’s impossible…”

This situation would normally be unthinkable unless something had subdued both the ants and the wasps and now commanded them both. The only thing capable of such a feat was…

“…This has to be the work of…the catastrophe…”

The tremor-like noises continued to go off even now. No—the commander had already stopped moving, but the sounds were getting closer. In other words, this was the sound of those exploding rocks. Even though he could hear them clearly, he simply could not conjure up an image of what was actually happening.

At some point, the soldier he had grabbed ran off. But in this situation, there was nothing they could do. Maybe it would be better if they all fled.

Anyway, he had to link up with the main force that was outside the city. He wasn’t sure what they could do once he did, but he knew they wouldn’t be able to do anything without his presence.

The commander took the messenger with him as he hurried to the east.

“Commander! There’s a bell tower this way! You can look out on most of the city from the top!”

Unable to make much progress, the commander had felt his impatience reaching its limits when he heard the messenger call out to him. Yes… Before they reunite with the main army, it might be best to collect himself and try to get a firmer grasp of the situation first. While the bell tower the messenger had indicated was no fire lookout tower, it was still taller than any of the other buildings in the area. It could at least be used to survey the state of the city.

The first thing the commander wanted to do after climbing the tower was confirm the location of the subjugation army. After that, decide the best course of action to take to combat the situation, then make their way to the army.

However, none of that was necessary.

Outside of the city, the land to the east was all plowed. There was so much land that it distorted his sense of scale, but there was something wrong with those fields of prepared farmland. He couldn’t see the main army anywhere out there.

No wait, that wasn’t outside of the city at all. It was a section of the city. There was no physical boundary between the outside and inside of the city, and about a fourth of all that land had been plowed for seed planting. And now, that area had expanded even further. Off to one side, there were ranks of wasps carrying ants. The ants were shooting black somethings from the ends of their abdomens. Even from far away, he could tell that the objects traveled very fast. As soon as they touched any of the houses in the city, they exploded, scattering fire and organic fragments all over. The line of wasps left nothing behind in its wake. They kept raining rocks down seamlessly, as though being chased by something.

There was no hope for the people who had been caught in the middle of all that, but the same wasn’t true for the subjugation army. While houses crumbled from a single hit, it was possible for a trained soldier to withstand such an attack. Even now, he saw some pushing aside the rubble and standing up in the city’s fields. However, just after they stood fully erect, blood would suddenly spurt from their heads and they would fall flat on their faces. He didn’t know what was happening there, but he did know that they were dead. The initial attack of exploding rocks wasn’t powerful enough to be fatal to a first-class soldier; the fact that they could take it and immediately get back up was proof that they didn’t take a lot of damage from it. But then something else was occurring. As soon as they were standing, they were killed by some unknown attack.

But really, even if the soldiers did survive, they lacked a way to oppose the wasps that hovered far up in the sky. At that height, normal magic couldn’t reach them, nor could bows. However, the same wasn’t true for the insects; none of their attacks would ever be out of range. After all, even once their projectiles used up their initial velocity, they would still fall to the ground.

Even if humanity was able to repel the angel attacks, this was the reason they could never be entirely rid of them: They could not attack the sky castle. Angels only ever engaged in melee combat, but if they happened to see and learn from this rout, the thought of them switching tactics to dropping rocks brought only feelings of despair.

The commander already knew. The subjugation army had effectively turned into a reserve force running blindly through the city. And, in all likelihood, any survivors would, in the near future, disappear along with the city of La Colline itself.

The commander could maybe survive by himself. He didn’t know what that strange attack was, but as long as he protected his head, he should at least avoid dying instantly. Perhaps some of the officers and highly skilled troops would be able to figure that out. The lord too. He led those spirited knights, after all. He himself must have been strong as well. And if the lord survived, then his undying bodyguards would too.

But that was it. No matter how strong any of these people were, it was impossible to protect the citizens against an attack like this.

This city was doomed.

The subjugation of the catastrophe failed.

Let alone the catastrophe, they couldn’t even do anything against its vanguard.

How would the kingdom handle the loss of one of its key transit hubs and commerce hubs? It also lost its main military force, its reserves, and its future soldiers in the youths who were conscripted for the subjugation, all in one fell swoop. There was no longer any way to mount an organized resistance to the catastrophe.

“Speaking of the future… If that swarm of wasps flies straight to the capital… Even if the nobles survive, what will happen to the people…”