Chapter 27. Ability User Battalion
As long as there is mana, one can make sacrifices to the gods in order to cast spells.
That would mean…
Even primitive people and monsters would be able to use magic. And the act of sacrificing to god to perform magic later on using an object as a catalyst would form a scroll or a spellstone. What a convenient world.
Well, the formation of a contract was a little complicated, but still…
The headbutt from the priest seemed to have cleared up my brain somewhat. My vision improved as well.
…It would be quite weird if I asked her to hit me more, right?
The saint was stomping her way forward for quite some time now. She seemed extremely angry. I suppose it couldn’t be helped. After all, I pretty much just bombarded her with one question after another. If I could, I’d ask her to just compile all her knowledge into a document, but…
I know. It’s a ridiculous thing to ask for.
I put down the hose, trying to keep track of the saint in front of me as I did so. Soon enough, we reached the plains. The saint just quietly walked forward following the dirt road in front of her. There were stones laid out to the side so that people wouldn’t fall off the cliff next to the road. The saint seemed to walk perilously close to the cliff, so I decided to carefully watch her from behind. I managed to catch up to her at some point, so we began walking side by side as a result. By the time we almost arrived back at the town, the saint let out a strange sound as she lost her balance.
“Nnyah!”
I calmly caught her collar as she fumbled around chaotically. The saint narrowed her eyes at what I did.
“…If you have something to say, say it now.”
“Ah, sorry. Didn’t have much to hold onto. Look, aren’t I holding a container of hoses in my right hand? I would’ve grabbed your breasts if I could, but there really isn’t much, as you might know.”
Tak.
The saint smiled widely, and grabbed on my head with her two hands. Her mana-enforced body gripped onto me like a vice. My body that had been revived with black magic began to burn in blue flames.
Oh dear…
Crack!
“Kah!”
A second headbutt. Blue flames were scattered into the wind.
“Ah…!”
At the same time, I lost my balance and fell backwards. My hand that was on the saint’s collar ended up taking her down with me. And the container that was in my hand rolled away from me.
“Kuh…”
I reflexively tried to put my hand to my head, but ended up feeling something soft in the process. It just happened to be the saint’s hair and back. The saint that was lying on top of me was so light and warm that I almost couldn’t even bring the thought of moving her off through my head. Well, I threw her off like piece of baggage immediately afterwards though. Her brown hair and red lips reminded me of the autumn. She extended her arms to me, as if she was asking for help in getting up.
“Do it on your own.”
She silently swung her arms around, so I ended up grabbing onto just one of her hands to help her. She dusted off her skirt and walked on as if nothing happened. I just silently followed her from the back.
We met Necro at the entrance to the village as promised. Next to him was his assistant, holding the hose dumbly.
“Why are you so damn late?”
“You always say that I’m late. Damn Koreans.”
The saint shrugged.
“We came right on time though?”
“Whatever. Just get the water going.”
“You think I’m a waterspout or some..?”
The saint annoyedly said this as she cupped her hands. Necro’s assistant put his hose above her hands.
“The rushing torrents of the castle of water.”
Mana began to pulsate in the surrounding area. The very first thing to do when casting magic was to classify the type of magic one would use.
“The lord of the deep watching over the eternal water.”
Next, the wizard would invoke the name of the god he or she is contracted with.
“Morto Hai requests to you that you quench the thirst of those that are here.”
Lastly, the wizard would set a target for the magic that would be cast. Once the casting time ended, water began to appear from the saint’s hands.
This was magic.
It was something quite similar to Oracle at its core. The user establishes a connection to the database and requests resources from afar. I suppose in modern terms, it would be like a walkie-talkie with remote charging capabilities. The water in the saint’s hands was pitiful at first, but the amount of water rapidly increased to uncontrollable amounts. Necro’s disciple skillfully controlled this water into the hose. After about five minutes of this, water began to flow out from the hose I was holding. Necro motioned me to give the hose to him, so I did.
“Alright, no problems here.”
He took the hose from his assistant and motioned him away.
“You’re done here. Leave.”
“No, professor…”
Necro frowned at his assistant’s annoyed expression.
“What? Why?”
“Wow… Seriously, damn…”
“What is it? Just let it out, you idiot.”
“You brought me all the way out here just for this… I’m the only one in the eighth generation of our household, you know? Will you take responsibility if I die?”
Assistants are always destined to be in pain, no matter what world they’re in huh.
“Are you rebelling against me?”
“No, no, It’s not that…”
“Hey. Did you actually think I’d bring you to a dangerous place? It’s all for your experience. I wouldn’t have come here if things were going to get dangerous you know?”
“But professor, you have Overdeath…”
“Just go make some spellstones.”
The assistant was almost kicked out of the scene. The hose was still flowing with water even now.
“Hah… That bastard, he’s starting to rebel now that he’s grown a bit.”
Necro cracked his neck a few times and put the hose together.
“The noble will that resides on the throne of crimson flames. The lord of the crimson spear that protects the eternal flame. I, Necro Kill, requests that you merge these two hoses together into one.”
His tone was serious, unlike the time when he was treating his assistant. Well, this was a sort of prayer, after all. I suppose you couldn’t really rap your way through it. After the chant was finished, the rubber hose melted to merge with the other one. White smoke began to rise from the connected area. I looked at this and judged Necro’s action with a single sentence.
“You might as well have used a lighter.”
“Pah, using magic’s way cooler. In any case, voila! The barrier is complete! Wah~ we’re done with our job here. Ugh, my hips hurt from working so much.”
Working my ass… All he did was circle the town once and chant a little bit. When Necro began to massage his hips, the saint began to massage her shoulders.
“Oh, my shoulders. Now all we have to do is to cover up the hose with dirt.”
“Let the others take care of that. Let’s just go eat.”
“We worked hard~!”
It almost seemed like they were concluding everything by themselves. Was this fine? Really? I thought they’d make a trap or something… Soldiers began to wildly run around behind me. Those who were hidden in the forest began moving as well.
Could it be, already..?
I tried to modify the floating eye to look past the bridge, but…
‘There’s nothing wrong. There’s nothing else to see here, so let’s look somewhere else.’
Instead of getting the visual information I wanted, I ended up reaching a strange conclusion.
“……”
I don’t think like this. Something was wrong here. I tried to look over the bridge once again, but again I reached a strange conclusion.
‘There’s nothing wrong here. Isn’t there something better I have to do?’
Was this a countermeasure against surveillance? I turned off the floating eye and looked over the bridge using my own eyes. What was on it was a group of soldiers with guns in their hands. There seemed to be a child in their midst, but most of them looked like exhausted young men. I couldn’t see many soldiers with injuries on them, unlike the soldiers from the first group. Seeing how their weapons were relatively new, they probably didn’t have much experience in battle.
The only group to arrive now would be the Second Subjugation Battalion.
I could observe all this easily, but when I looked with the floating eye again, I reached the conclusion that I saw nothing. If someone asked me about what I saw now, I’d probably answer that I saw nothing.
This must be the work of a power.
“Ah, they came fast.”
I realized that my suspicions were correct when Necro said this. I had been observing the outskirts of the town every once in awhile to make sure nothing strange was approaching. The reason why I didn’t notice them was probably because one of them managed to fool my floating eye. I saw them, but didn’t notice them. Because I didn’t think much of them, they didn’t even remain in my memories. It probably worked like that. As I watched them cross the bridge, I thought of what I had read about them in the reports.
The 2nd battalion of the 15th regiment of the 17th division. Commonly referred to as the “Ability User Battalion”.
It was composed of the [Storm], a group that boasted in super speed, and [Hundred Eight Eyes], a group that was composed of demon eye users. A hundred summoned people who have been trained as soldiers-
They were the spotlight of this mission.
“They are…?”
I had thought that the soldiers would walk across first, but those at the back of the group were coming out to the front. For whatever reason, they were pulling supply carts and were lining them up in front of the bridge.
“…They’re assistants.”
Assistants?
The people that just got off from the supply carts seemed quite fatigued. They had bags under their eyes and they were hunched over in exhaustion. The saint paused for a moment before she continued to talk.
“They repair equipment and help the summoned people to be able to live in comfort… They’re quite the people.”
She seemed to be dissatisfied with something.
“Well, she isn’t wrong.”
Necro butted in right as the saint finished speaking.
“But honestly, they’re just slaves.”
The saint glared at Necro.
“Ah, what? He should know stuff like this. Am I wrong? They’re the ones that fulfill our every request and sacrifice themselves. They even go through the danger zones to check if the area’s safe or not. Might as well be meat shields at this point.”
Necro waved his arms frantically as he spoke.
“Having no power in this world is a sin! You got that? I’ll say something quote-worthy to you now, so be sure to write it down! ‘Power is status’. Okay? Just look at me, haven’t I earned the rank of a colonel at this age?”
A colonel, huh. It seemed that in this world, lieutenant colonels were in charge of normal foot soldiers, with colonels being in charge of soldiers with special abilities.
“Did you know? Those guys are in charge of night entertainment as well. Doesn’t matter what gender you are as long as you’re pretty. How do I know? I was almost a victim of it.”
I could feel strange gazes behind my back, so I turned around. I could see bear-like men cover their chests and genitals.
“……”
It seemed that the soldiers of the First Subjugation Battalion came to watch. I turned back to look at the Second Subjugation Battalion.
“Looks like conscription.”
“Oh, you noticed quick.”
This much was obvious. To the nation, ability users were valuable resources that could potentially turn into terrorists. They had to create multiple laws around them to prevent accidents. They probably set up a system to control the ability users, then created laws to restrict them. And they probably also created a system to force summoned people to fight each other at certain situations.
The easiest system that could achieve this was conscription.
After all, it would always be easier to use the law against someone rather than using money to bait them in. If the summoned people did not obey the law, they would become outcasts. They had no choice but to join the army if they didn’t want to be jailed, and by using the people who had already joined the army to further enforce the law, a structure was formed where summoned people kept checks on each other from trying to rebel. This way the nation was able to bring stability and at the same time, increase their military’s capabilities.
“Am I a conscripted soldier as well then?”
“Hmm… Who knows? You’re a corpse, so I wonder how you were processed? What, you worried?”
“Not really.”
The carts only began to move after the assistants all moved across the bridge. They must’ve concluded that the bridge was safe. Something like this could only happen when the military help supplies rather than humans in higher regard.
“You seem to dislike it somewhat.”
“Just look. They’re quite a lot like… Old men who got conscripted in the middle of doing something. Don’t you think so?”
Well… They were people who came from a different world, after all. Plus, half of the members of [Storm] were Korean.
“Just think about it. They’re in their middle ages, and they were conscripted to the military? Some people are doing this twice you know. I came to a different world to experience this kind of shit…”
Necro let out an angry laugh.
“To hell with fun adventures. I just got conscripted… Just conscripted, god damn it. Do you know how maddening that is? That’s why most of the guys in Storm have shitty personalities. Better not get along with them too much.”
I nodded and went back to observing the group.
