Read Novel Full Chapter 265
Chapter 265
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Chapter 265 – Valley Village
“The smoke is getting thicker.”
“Should we go towards the smoke?”
“No, keep going. The escapees came from that rocky hill.”
A warlike voice came immediately from the gun emplacement.
“The battlefield is there.”
As Casspir advanced toward the valley visible to the northeast, we met another group of fleeing men. This time, it was the younger group, the same age or slightly older than the Prince and the twin guards, evacuating to protect the old and the children. I don’t know the age of the elves, but I would say they were in their late teens.
They saw the huge body of the Casspir coming toward them and braced themselves, but Myrril, the gunner, calmed them.
“We’re here to help. Are any of you wounded?”
“O-oh… no, there are none.”
As before, I untie the elves, give them water and food to carry, and tell them to head south. We set up a simple tent for the elders who said they could no longer move and put more water and food on top of it.
“Then we will use this as a way station for the evacuees. The people who went to the forest first will come back with help. Wait here for a while. We’ll go rescue the people.”
Behind us, as we got back into the car, the old woman looked at Prince Haidar and muttered,
“You are?”
“Oh. The descendant of the incompetent who destroyed the country. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”
“No way, this is our fault.”
To the Prince, who bowed his head, the old woman replied that her foolish predecessors had brought this upon themselves.
“I came back from the brink of death to save as many people as I could with my life. I know this is the arrogance of a young man, but I still can’t give up.”
“Those words are unnecessary.”
Turning his back on the kneeling old woman and young man, the Prince followed us and jumped onto the side of Casspir’s body. It seems that he wants to hold on to the car without entering it so that he can get out immediately.
“Please, Your Majesty the Demon King.”
“Yoshua, go ahead. There is the sound of battle about a quarter mile ahead.”
After passing through several sand dunes and emerging on a ridge, we found men who looked like elves resisting with bows and hand spears. The fighting men were men with leather breastplates and curved one-handed swords. They were probably soldiers from their common equipment, but their equipment and clothing were simpler than those who had been in the forest.
“Prince, those are…”
“They are sailors of the empire.”
“Navy soldiers? But isn’t it almost a hundred miles to the sea?”
According to the description of the Prince and the others, it is about a hundred miles on a flat road surface to the northern coast. If you go northeast, the straight line to the sea is much closer, but you have to go over steep rocky mountains and cliffs, I heard.
“Even so, they came deep inland, didn’t they?”
“In the Imperial Navy, the results of landing battles are everyone’s share.”
So they got greedy and went deep. About thirty sailors were killed by PKM bullets fired by Myrril.
“Your Majesty, please wait a moment. I will use the currency of mercy.”
The bodies of the dead sailors turned into a forest about ten meters square. The elves who fought back must have realized it was the royal family, and they kneeled down in a posture similar to prayer.
“Go, please. There are still people fighting up ahead.”
“There they are. Yoshua, at the end of the rocky hill, go around it from the right.”
“Roger that… Ah.”
As I was about to start the car, I remembered and turned around to remove the elves’ restraints. I used a combination of single shots as they were a bit far away, but I missed a few and got some painful reactions, so I tried again and finally managed to free them.
“I see them, the enemy.”
It was out of my sight, but a rifle shot from a gun emplacement splattered blood in the distance. By the time I rounded the rocky hillside, the sailors in similar battle gear were out of action.
There, too, the Prince uses the “currency of grace” in passing to create a sparse forest. I feel that he is becoming more and more adept at this.
“Prince, there are still enemies out there. Will you be able to keep up with the magic?”
“Don’t worry, Your Majesty. Most of the power consumed will come from the dead.”
That’s fine, but I’m afraid the green border is swaying. It’s not the wind, is it? It’s definitely after us, isn’t it?
“Will this grass or anything else be eaten if humans get too close?”
“It’s going to stay active for a few days, so it’ll try to take advantage of the abundance around it.”
Although it was expressed in a vague way, the answer was yes. Upon hearing this, I quickly changed course. It doesn’t seem likely that Casspir will be taken in by the whole thing, but I don’t want to go near it.
“But it’s very practical, the “currency of grace.” It will probably serve as a shelter for the refugees and a barricade to prevent the enemy from pursuing them.”
“If only some of them could escape that far.”
“I suppose so.”
Further in were the corpses of a man and a woman with pierced headdresses that looked like elves. Myrril shot a sailor who tried to take it off, and the Prince turned the entire corpse of his opponent into a small forest.
“Prince… what can I say? Is it good?”
“Yes. If I could return their life to the forest as an elf, they would be more than happy to do so.”
“Is that so?”
As we moved forward, killing about fifty sailors and expanding the green space, we came to the exit of the valley.
There was a tunnel about ten meters in diameter, with a sort of barricade of dead fallen trees on either side of the exit. Behind the fallen trees, there were several elves who had fallen and were not moving, and the ten or so survivors were shooting arrows frantically.
“What are you doing, push, push!”
“There are only ten demons left to die; push in!”
Inside the tunnel, dozens of sailors are camped out, struggling to attack with wooden shields stacked in front of them. The elves’ longbows stopped after piercing the wooden shields, and the sailors who fell after being shot through the exposed parts of their shields took their places with the next sailors, who in turn held up their shields, which had become like needlepoint holders.
It is unclear if the sailors we have seen so far have broken through here or gone around, but the main body of the enemy seems to be with these guys or at the end of the tunnel.
“Yoshua, is it okay if I shoot? I can’t see beyond the hole.”
“Shrine Maiden, do you see any elves at the end of this hole?”
“”””Very weak presence.””””
The voices of the shrine maidens gathered behind the driver’s seat announced in a trembling voice.
“”””Now it’s gone.””””
“I don’t feel the lives of my companions within a reasonable range anymore.”
“Mir.”
“Roger that.”
Gunfire rang out with tremendous force. The rifle fire easily shattered the wooden shields stacked one on top of the other and mowed down the sailors in its wake. In front of the silent tunnel, the elven archers turned. They had finally noticed us. The Prince, who had dismounted from the Casspir, approached them with trepidation.
“Where did you come from? And those who ran away…”
The Prince is at a loss for an answer, but Myrril offers help from her gun emplacement.
“We were just passing by. We helped some of your people who escaped on the way. About thirty of them are now fleeing south.”
“South? To the Sea of Sand?”
“No, about a hundred miles away is a forest made of the currency of grace. They will send help soon. You can go there yourself.”
“That can’t be true.”
“Believe it or not, it’s your choice. Just tell me what’s on the other side of that hole.”
“Impossible! You’ll die if you go there!”
At a signal from Myrril, the shackles that held the elves who tried to stop us were removed.
The strong men are obviously frightened when they see the bundle of shackles thrown in front of them.
“I appreciate your concern, but… We are not going to die.”
“…O-oh.”
Meanwhile, the shrine maidens from Casspir rushed down and cast healing spells on the men still lying on the ground. Not all of them survived, but some did as a result of the coordinated effort.
“You can leave the rest to us. You go south.”
“Thank you.”
The men saw us off, and we entered the tunnel at Casspir. The bodies were piled up inside, and since there was no way to turn them into a forest on the spot, I decided to take them to my storage.
“The village of Kaimani has been wiped out?”
There were apparently some survivors when the elven warriors left the village while helping everyone else escape, but those were the ones who stayed behind as the lord’s army. The fact that nearly a hundred sailors went south in all means that it is unlikely that any of them are safe.
Still.
“We have no choice but to leave. There may be some survivors.”
The tunnel led to a depression less than a kilometer in diameter, protected by rocky mountains. What had once seemed like a quiet hideaway was now a shithole of destroyed supplies and dead elves. A group of soldiers, busy looting and scavenging houses and corpses, looked at us and smiled in bewilderment. They probably did not understand whether we were enemies or not. Some of them even pointed their fingers and laughed, showing the size of the Imperial Navy.
“Are there any survivors?”
“”””No.””””
“I see, that’s unfortunate.”
Myrril exhales in response to the shrine maiden’s answer. The words that follow are a mixture of disappointment and sympathy.
“The people of Kaimani, watch from the heavens. At best, this land will become a large forest with the remains of the scum.”