Vol 2 Chapter 15 – The War Goes Smoothly, and We Find the Mastermind

Spring came.

It’s nice that winter ended and it’s gotten warmer, but at the same time, something I really didn’t want to show up came along with it.

That’s right. A massive fleet crossing the sea to invade the Empire.

This time too, the Emperor had already sent a request to House Saionji, so Yumeba, Yukina-san, and I took over a small house in the port town and watched the situation unfold.

Of course, with my world map magic projected in midair from my right eye.

“That’s a lot.”

“That really is a massive fleet.”

Just from what we can see, close to a thousand ships—large and small—are approaching the Empire.

“Honestly, if we could land a preemptive strike, I could just use magic to raise a tsunami and sink the whole lot.”

“But if you do that, House Saionji loses its place in the world.”

When I muttered with a sigh, Yukina-san shot back while working her smartphone.

Yeah. Ever since we got here, she’s been sending messages to her husband nonstop.

Sir, I’m truly sorry.

“Same as always—watch and wait at first.”

“Lio, about when is this fleet going to reach the Empire?”

“We can’t really hope for a storm, but it looks like they keep running into monsters, so… probably still about two weeks out.”

“…So we have time.”

Yeah. We have time. A pointless amount of it.

Thanks to that, I’ve ended up stuck with the ordeal of sending Yukina-san back to the Saionji estate in the Imperial Capital every night, then going to pick her up again in the morning.

Well, I do get the perk of having Yumeba all to myself every night, but still—war should hurry up and end so we can take it easy and flirt properly.

“Over there, they look ridiculously tense.”

I zoomed in on my world map magic to show Yunix and the two cheat reincarnators—who, for some reason, declared they’d participate in this war—and they looked stiff as boards, faces pale.

“Why are they getting nervous already? Even without us, they should know the enemy won’t be here for a while.”

“It’s their first battle, apparently.”

When this war was decided, the Emperor asked me—just in case—to keep an eye on Yunix.

Of course, I told him that since I’d be fighting as part of House Saionji, I wouldn’t be able to back Yunix up in a naval battle—but he said “do what you can,” so I reluctantly accepted.

“They’re just in the way.”

“They really are.”

Naturally, since Yunix is the fifth prince, he’s been put in charge of a fleet, and the general serving as that fleet’s commander looks absolutely miserable.

The sailors on the warships are mostly rookies to begin with, and on top of that, he has to babysit Yunix, a first-timer who’s basically dead weight—so yeah, I can understand the guy’s suffering.

Well, putting Yunix aside, it’s extremely questionable whether the other two will even still be here by the time the war starts.

They look so tense they can barely eat, and on top of that, maybe their stomachs are wrecked too, because they keep sprinting to the toilet.

They might get a doctor’s stop order before they even get the chance to run away.

◇◆◇

Just as Emilio predicted, the enemy fleet entered the Empire’s waters two weeks later.

Thanks to monster attacks, the fleet had dropped to around nine hundred ships, but since the Empire’s fleet was only around three hundred, you could still call it an overwhelming difference in power.

(This is hopeless!)

Even if Yunix didn’t scream when he got the report, his already pale face somehow went even paler.

(I-I’m the man who’ll become Emperor. I can’t die in a place like this!)

Yunix desperately tried to pump himself up, forcing his trembling body to steady.

“Ugh… I-I’m gonna puke.”

“M-My stomach… can I go to the toilet?”

“………….”

If you can call it a silver lining, Yunix was able to calm down a little because there were two people nearby making even more hopeless faces than him—Kitazawa Ryuji and Nanba Yosuke.

(I thought they were useless, but they’re weirdly useful in moments like this.)

And when Yunix looked around, the sailors on board were mostly rookies too, so there were plenty of guys with faces just as pale as his.

“Captain. How long until the fighting starts?”

“…There will be a signal. When it goes up, that’s the start.”

“I see.”

Even Yunix couldn’t bring himself to ask something as stupid as “Can we win?”

Everyone already knew from the start that defeat was likely, which is why House Saionji was waiting behind them, assuming the enemy would land.

In this world, naval battles start with trading arrows and spells the moment you’re in range.

Then, once you get closer, you ram ships together, drive in the stake-like prow to pierce and immobilize the enemy vessel, and then board for close combat.

Of course, that’s only if the enemy ship is small enough to board normally. If it’s a large ship, you shoot arrows tied to ropes and use them to climb aboard.

In that case, most people get knocked into the sea before they can even make it over.

While Yunix was running through the basics of naval tactics, a spell shot up into the sky—

And the signal to begin was given.

As you’d expect, the Empire’s navy had bottomed-out morale the moment they realized the enemy outnumbered them three to one.

Still, once the signal went up, they fired arrows and spells at the enemy ships—and, naturally, a storm of arrows and spells came back, and ship after ship went down.

Well, it’s not like every enemy ship attacks in perfect unison, so “three times” is partly an illusion.

But it’s true that as more ships sank, morale dropped even further.

Then the enemy ships slammed in, drove their stakes into hulls, and boarded.

And of course, the deck of a ship rocking on the sea sways under your feet.

That rocking is the real problem—trying to fight with the same sense you have on land just doesn’t work.

Even if they’d been trained for it, the Empire’s sailors weren’t used to it, and veteran enemy marines cut them down one after another, thinning their ranks fast.

Of course, it wasn’t completely one-sided—the Empire’s sailors fought back—but it was obvious the Empire’s losses were larger.

With differences in numbers and experience, the result was inevitable.

The longer it went on, the worse it got for the Empire’s navy, and more and more ships sank.

“C-Captain! Aren’t we going to fight?”

Watching it all unfold, Yunix had stayed back, taking a position well away from the main battlefield at sea—basically observing.

“You want us to charge in there and join the battle?”

“I-Is that not what we’re doing?”

“…We’d die.”

“—!”

From the start, Yunix’s fleet was never meant to take part in the naval battle. Under the “noble” justification of protecting Yunix, it was exempt.

No one expected to win at sea in the first place—this was participation for the sake of appearances.

“T-Then why are we even here?”

“To open a path through the enemy fleet—so House Saionji can do its job.”

“………….”

Right. If the enemy fleet scatters and lands through multiple routes, that’s a problem. So fleets like Yunix’s are staying back like this, watching, specifically to create a “road” for the enemy.

From the enemy’s perspective, if a clear path to land is already open, there’s no reason to bother detouring to engage Yunix’s fleet.

It’s not just Yunix—multiple fleets are using friendly fleets as bait to create routes for the enemy.

All so more enemies will be funneled toward where House Saionji is waiting.

(Then what the hell did I even join this war for?!)

“Don’t provoke the enemy. I’m not joking—…you’ll die.”

“—!”

Yunix bristled with indignation, but there was nothing he could do now except watch—

And endure the humiliation.

◇◇◇

“They’re here.”

At Yumeba’s words, I lift my face from my world map magic.

The naval battle hasn’t been going that long, but the Empire’s navy is already half-destroyed and turned into seaweed, and the other half has become a “road” to guide the enemy’s route.

“I don’t know who came up with this, but I can’t decide if it’s efficient or just vicious.”

If nothing else, it’ll let House Saionji do what we do best—but the surviving allied fleets must be shaking with humiliation.

“At least it definitely wasn’t Yunix.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

It was probably the Emperor, or Friedrich—the first prince who’s now the Crown Prince.

“Alright. Then…”

Watching enemy soldiers pour off ships and onto the Empire’s land, I…

“Guess we’ll light our own signal fire over here.”

I snapped my fingers and treated them to an explosive flame spell.

Honestly, this war was incredibly easy.

While the enemy is still on their ships, we can’t touch them—but that just means we choose positions that can’t be hit by ship fire. Then the moment they land, I slam them with magic, Yumeba charges in under my reinforcement spells, and Yukina-san is out there somewhere going wild.

The enemy numbers are enormous, so soldiers keep landing nonstop, but it basically became simple work: let them gather a bit, then drop an explosive flame spell.

Of course, the enemy isn’t going to politely line up to get blasted, so they try different tricks as they land—but my magic is strong enough to crush those kinds of gimmicks.

“Lio. Stop attacking for a bit—let them get drawn in.”

“Got it.”

But maybe we pushed too hard, because fewer soldiers started landing, and at Yumeba’s suggestion I paused the attacks.

That limitation—being unable to attack the ships from our side—is annoying.

It looks like they still have plenty left, and this one might take days again.

◇◇◇

It’s already the fifth day since the war began.

We’ve taken down the vast majority ourselves, but there’s no way to stop everyone, so a small number managed to land and break through.

Well, that side is something we have to leave to the Empire’s ground forces who were waiting inland.

“Fwaaah… It’s hard to pace yourself—switching gears and resting at the right times.”

“Yeah. If more enemies came all at once, it’d be easier.”

Yumeba and I have been alternating, taking breaks in turns, but by day five the fatigue is starting to build up.

Yukina-san has been happily roaming around on her own, though.

Still, with all this time, we should’ve shaved down their numbers a lot…

“Hm?”

“What is it?”

A single ship approached, and from it, people in mismatched gear started pouring onto land.

“Enemy reinforcements?”

“No. That’s…”

This wasn’t a hunch—it was certainty.

“…A whole army of cheat reincarnators.”

I don’t know what happened, but it looked like nearly all the cheat reincarnators—everyone except the two Yunix had been keeping—came charging into the Empire at once.

◇◆◇

He had been waiting for this moment.

He had been waiting for the moment of revenge.

For that sake, he endured his time in hiding, piled up his resentment, and prepared meticulously.

To him, the Continental Public Security Maintenance Alliance had been nothing more than bait.

A yardstick to measure the enemy’s strength.

More precisely, a yardstick to measure the enemy’s greatest force—House Saionji.

And so he prepared, and he assembled his forces.

He had the same power as Yunix.

Yunix had been given the power called 《Fan Sage》 by god—by Earth’s god.

But what decisively set him apart from Yunix was that he gathered cheat reincarnators with his own hands.

Instead of waiting for them to gather to him like Yunix did, he moved and collected them himself.

As a result, he became the one commanding all the cheat reincarnators—everyone except Kitazawa Ryuji and Nanba Yosuke.

And then he started with a war of attrition.

He fed troops from his fleet onto land in small batches, without rest, one after another, aiming to grind the enemy down.

And once the enemy was worn out and running low, he unleashed the army of cheat reincarnators.

If you call it cunning, it doesn’t get more cunning than this.

“HYAHHAA!”

The first one to leap out was a big man with the cheat of 《Tenfold Power》.

His body couldn’t keep up with the raw strength, so it took him time to adjust, but he still had overwhelming power that could mow everything down—

“Annoying.”

“—!”

Yumeba took his head clean off with her sword, killing him instantly.

No matter how strong his power was, his movement was amateurish, and even if your power is huge, if your defense is paper-thin, this is what happens.

“Ha! I won’t end up like that guy!”

Next was a slender man with the cheat of 《Ultra Regeneration》.

He wanted an immortal cheat, but was told it wasn’t possible, so he settled for ultra regeneration instead.

A cheat that could regenerate even horrific injuries in seconds—

“Yeah, yeah. Go do that in the afterlife.”

“—!”

Yukina split him straight down from the crown of his head to between his legs, and he died.

He can regenerate any injury, sure—but if he dies instantly, it doesn’t matter. That’s obvious.

There was also a man with a cheat called ultra resistance, supposedly able to endure any attack, but Emilio’s magic hit him and turned him to ash.

In this world’s rules, magic is outside the “resistance” category, so having resistance doesn’t mean anything.

Then there was a man with ultra acceleration, able to move at high speed, but he entered Yumeba’s iai range and got cut down immediately.

If you compare movement speed and attack speed, attack speed wins—obviously—and with Yumeba’s reaction time and swing speed, that’s even more true.

A man with an assassination-skill cheat slipped behind Emilio and tried to slash his throat with a poisoned knife, but he got blocked by the absolute defensive barrier Aegis, then ate a punch from the magically reinforced Emilio and had his head burst apart.

All you can say is that the matchup was terrible.

There was some guy with an insane cheat, but he picked a fight with Yukina—so he got minced to pieces before he could even show it off.

That one just picked the wrong opponent.

Men with all kinds of cheats challenged the three of House Saionji in all kinds of ways, but without exception, they were all struck down.

We’ve been fighting for five days, so we are worn down, and the enemy has close to a hundred cheat reincarnators with strength from A-class to S-class adventurers.

But on the other hand, we aren’t critically exhausted—and the enemy is just a hundred people at around S-class, at best.

So, the cheat reincarnators—relying on cheats, lacking resolve and guts—tried to run, but there was no way we’d let them, and they were taken down one after another.

“………….”

Even watching all of that, he stayed calm.

Not because it went exactly as planned, but because it wasn’t outside his expectations.

(I knew I didn’t have enough attrition forces, and I knew full well that “trash with cheats” couldn’t beat House Saionji.)

To grind down House Saionji, you’d need at least ten times this much force, and former shut-ins who just got handed cheats aren’t going to beat House Saionji.

More than anything, they were never a threat—because the reincarnation god only mentioned them to Emilio as a casual complaint.

(But… I’ve got him.)

“…Huh?”

Understanding all of that, he still achieved his goal—revenge.

The one standing there in a daze, stabbed through the heart from behind, was Yunix—who’d stayed behind alone to at least watch the battlefield, even while feeling powerless at being unable to do anything.

“W-Why…?”

“The grudge for the way you killed me… I’ve finally repaid it!”

“………….”

And without ever learning who killed him, the light left Yunix’s eyes—

And he crumpled.

◇◇◇

“You’re…”

“Huh? No way.”

After we finished dealing with the cheat reincarnators, Yunix—who’d been watching nearby—was stabbed through the heart from behind and died.

But what shocked Yumeba and me wasn’t Yunix’s death—it was the one who’d driven a blade into his heart.

“…Lio?”

“………….”