Chapter 471 - Initial Strike (Patreon)

Hera's Status

Alex was with the long-range battalion of the army. In front of her, Blue was leading the charge with the other two groups that would be forming the vanguard. So far, everything was working out great. They had figured out a better way to fight their battles and Hera was able to find one of the traps and trigger it preventively. She even used her spells to cover up the pit so the army could move without going around it. Sure, it was just the start of the war, but a part of her expected things to go wrong much sooner.

Her happiness was short-lived, however. Just as the army was getting close to the trap's location, a firework went off nearby. She had talked to her about possible signals or anything they could use to warn each other of an emergency; a firework was not part of those. This could only mean that this signal was actually something made by the people of Bonpei. Maybe a trap was triggered or something else to warn them of the army's arrival.

"Hera? What's going on?" Alex asked through the communicator.

"I... There was an attack," Hera replied, still shell-shocked from what just happened.

"Are you okay? Did we lose anyone?"  Alex asked.

"I... Don't know. Maybe? No. I don't think so," Hera tried to reply, but her mind was a mess. She was responsible for the scouts. She knew that people could be around and could try to attack them. She knew that she would have to kill them if that was the case; yet, when it came to it, she couldn't do it. Even if everything here was just part of a dungeon and it wasn't real, she still couldn't attack someone simply because they looked human. Because of her own Hesitation, the woman sent a signal to Bonpei, and any hopes of making a surprise attack had gone down the drain.

"Hera? What happened?" Alex was almost yelling, her voice clearly worried.

"Mum! Snap out of it," Daskka slapped Hera's face with her tail. It wasn't an attack to hurt but to shock the explorer enough so she could move again.

Hera felt a sting of pain coming from her cheek but a much stronger agony from her connection with Daskka, "Daskka? Are you ok? What happened?"

"Sorry, mum. We can't hurt you even if we're trying to help. There are some very specific exceptions, but if we do something outside of those, we get some punishment from the legacy," Daskka wasn't in pain. Instead, the punishment was in the form of fear. An overwhelming fear that made it seem like the entire world was crumbling as if everything that she was was being put to the test.

"What? No. Stop. I don't want the legacy to hurt anyone or make you feel like that. I'm fine with you guys not being able to kill me, but if you hurt me because you're trying to help me, that's fine. There's no punishment necessary," Hera sputtered, hoping that her order could somehow override the restrictions imposed by the legacy. Just as she finished speaking, what Daskka was feeling vanished completely.

"Ugh, thanks, mum. That felt really bad," Daskka shivered before snuggling with Hera again.

"I'm sorry, I'm the one that pushed you to that point. I promise it won't happen again," Hera patted Daskka's head. After a moment, Hera called Alex on the communicator and explained what had happened. She made sure to add that it was her fault that the signal went off because she failed to finish off one of the humans that attacked them.

"Okay. What's done is done. Don't worry about it. I know you're dealing with your stuff. Just don't scare me like that again. I thought something happened to you,"  Alex let out a long sigh.

"Same. I was quiet, but I was freaking out, not knowing what happened to you. By your reaction, I just thought it was better for me not to say anything so you wouldn't feel overwhelmed," Blue added.

"I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I'm going to take the scouts closer to the outpost to see if we can figure out any of their defenses or the numbers they have in there. We won't engage, but I'll see what I can find," Hera said with a more confident voice.

"Don't get too close. We don't know if they have any mages or archers in the outpost. If you can't find anything, that's fine. Prioritize you and the scouts' safety. You know that when the war actually starts, you are the one who's going to be giving commands, right?" Alex asked.

"Yeah. Because of the chain of command skill, right?"

"Exactly. I'm going to be with the scouts, and we're going to be focusing on taking out specific targets to hinder Bonpei's army. While that's going on, I want you to be on the back line giving commands to the tribe and give me the play-by-play of what's happening," Alex refreshed Hera's memory of their plan.

"Yeah, it's going to be easier for you too,"  Blue added.

"What do you mean by that?" Hera was already letting the scouts know of the plan.

"Blue!" Alex gasped.

"What? It's better for her to know. Hera, we talked about this, me and Alex, I mean. We figured it'd be better for you to start off by indirectly killing the dungeon constructs. Going straight for killing them yourself felt like it would be a bit too much," Blue explained.

Hera gestured for the scouts to hide since they were getting closer to the outpost, "I never thought about that. It's probably a good idea. Thanks, guys."

Focusing again on the task at hand, Hera continued sneaking towards the outpost. Together with the scouts, they quietly got closer and closer, trying to see who would be inside or around the structures. They couldn't get too close to the outpost's walls, but Hera had a plan. By sending one of her blades towards it and making the conga line, she could send one of her court members flying above the wall, who would, in turn, send back the information of what they were seeing. Sure, the people there could find the floating weapon strange, but Hera was betting on the people's curiosity. She imagined that instead of just attacking the floating weapon, the soldiers would call their friends to see this weird thing that was roaming around the city walls. Especially since her blades didn't have anything directly connected to the volcano tribe.

Her plan worked at first. During the 2 minutes or so, Ooze managed to look into the outpost and send back a considerable amount of information. It seems like there were 5 different buildings, but three of them were very small and should be able to hold only about 10 or 20 people. The other two were larger that might be able to have 50 people inside, but they didn't look all that well reinforced. Everything was also made out of wood which meant that fire could be an excellent way to destroy this. The blade was also able to tell that inside this outpost, that should be around a hundred troops. Ooze was also able to find two people that seemed to be commanding the army. One of them was who, after noticing the floating chakram, told the troops to attack since it could be something made by the volcano tribe.

In a quick motion, Ooze came back to Hera along with the rest of the blades that were making the line. It gave a more detailed report to the empress, allowing her to understand the layout of the outpost. The two larger structures were right in front of each other, with the road crossing the middle. If one were to ignite one of the buildings, it seems like only one of the sides of the buildings would be engulfed in flames since there was a  considerable distance between each side of the road. All of her court agreed that the best way to attack this place would be from above. However, there is no easy way of doing that. The mountain to the left of the outpost was too steep and jagged for anyone to reach a proper position where they could both attack and be ready to evade any defensive spells coming from Bonpei's army.

The rest of the scouts were able to find out if any more troops were surrounding the outpost and if there was another Battalion behind it. Luckily, this first area seemed to be defended only by those hundred. While heading back to the main army, Hera explained everything to Alex. The party agreed that this was a bit fishy. There was a high chance that this outpost itself was a trap. Maybe some large-scale spells could be used to destroy the army or that it was just something made to make them waste time. Having no way to know why this place was so poorly protected, Alex decided to continue with the attack. But, she would burn all the buildings and leave the army's main force outside.

When Hera returned to the main force, she and Alex swapped places. Alex was now going to head out with the scouts that would be working as an assassination team while Hera stayed behind in command of the forces. Another reason they were making the change was that with Hera's blades, she could have an aerial view of the area. She sent 3 blades to shoot up in the sky as high as possible while the other three would be around her to protect her in case of an attack. Ooze, Lurize, and Swift took care of the aerial view while Brute, Executioner, and Beam were on protection duty. Her reasoning was more focused on the ones she wanted to keep by her side and that Ooze should be the one who was farther away in the sky. Since its specific weapon skill was essentially screaming, it would be the best option in case there was an emergency that she had to be aware of.

"Hera, Blue, are you ready?" Alex asked.

" I'm ready, and so is the ranged battalion," Blue replied.

"Releon, are we ready to start?" Hera asked the volcano tribe chieftain that was by her side.

"I believe so. You know that we must see it to the end once we start. I highly doubt that the people of Bonpei would allow us to have a moment of rest during this war," the flaming humanoid replied while tapping his igneous rock spear to the side.

Hera nodded, " I know. Let's start then," she took a deep breath, "Alex, we're ready."

"Okay. Whenever you are ready, give the order to the artillery squad," Alex replied while hiding on the other side of the outpost with the scouts.

Hera raised one of her hands, "Ready… Aim… Fire!" hundreds of flaming arrows and fire spells flew through the air towards the outpost as if it was a barrage of fire coming down from the heavens. Before the first of the arrows even hit anything, people started screaming. Hera could hear cries of battle, panic, and even some people just screaming that they were about to die. She was the one responsible for that, and she had to accept it. Pushing down all her fear and worry, Hera clenched her fists and gestured towards the vanguard, "Army, advance. Hold the line outside the outpost, don't let any stragglers out."

The first Battalion search walked forward at a steady pace. When they were about 50 meters away from Bonpei's army, two mages appeared and cast spells to create a large rain cloud above the volcano tribe's front line. The tribesmen just chuckled and took the water, turning some of their bodies into igneous rock and increasing their defenses. The faces of the mages were of utter terror as they realized their plan had failed completely. The ranged battalion didn't stop in the first volley. They kept going, again and again, sending more spells and more arrows towards the outpost. 3 minutes after the barrage of projectiles started, some more intense screaming came from Bonpei's army as the two lieutenants responsible for the outpost were killed off by Alex and the scouts.

This initial battle lasted for a total of 5 minutes, and not a single member of the volcano tribe fell during the combat. After some time, they could all confirm that there were no more living creatures inside the outpost, and the army kept pressing forward. As they passed, the flames opened up a path for the army, showing respect to the pure fire from the volcano. Just as the last soldier crossed the threshold of the outpost, large jacket spikes of ice appeared around the roads,  surrounding both the next outpost and the city of Bonpei. Clearly, the people there were not willing to end like this, and they would fight to the bitter end for their survival.