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We were able to return to the Dioral Kingdom before the war began.
If we had proceeded to go through the desert on foot, the Dioral Kingdom would've been gone by the time we got back.
I detested the Dioral Kingdom and wanted to destroy it, but it's become my property now. It would be a waste to lose it.
Besides, Ellen was in the Dioral Kingdom. She probably would've been killed as a warning to the citizens.
There's no way I could allow that.
I'm having a strategy meeting with Ellen and Freya in a special room.
We don't know where the information might be leaking from, so we have to be extra careful.
"As expected of you, Kearugniisama, you made an artificial dragon to return so quickly. With an artificial dragon and Freya's power, we should be able to cause serious damage to them. Is this place fine as the attacking point?" (Ellen)
Ellen pointed at a place on the map.
She's talking about a narrow ravine path that's around a hundred kilometers away from the Dioral Kingdom, where there are tall rocks surrounding the path from both sides, making it hard to move about in it. Furthermore, it's a straight path that continues for a long way.
"Yeah. That's the best place for Freya to make use of her power. It's usually tough for the attacking side too, but we can attack from above. Fighting them when they're on terrain that's hard to move on is a complete advantage for us." (Kearuga)
"That's interesting. I bet they wouldn't even think we would attack them while they're crossing through it. I'm sure they wouldn't expect to receive heavy damage at this timing." (Freya)
"While we're at it, we should destroy the walls on both sides to block the path. If they can't use this ravine path, they'll need to take two more days to take a detour. Well, doing that would probably affect merchants badly, but we're fighting a war here. We don't have to care about that." (Kearuga)
"Yes, I permit it. Kearugniisama, I wish you good luck." (Ellen)
Someone knocked on the door.
The soldiers came. It seems they collected the wing that broke off.
Now I can start repairing the aircraft.
We need to ambush them before they pass through the ravine path.
I don't have that much time to repair it, so I should do it as fast as I can.
Freya and I are flying through the sky together.
I made another improvement to the aircraft. I reinforced it with the mithril I had on me.
I could've reinforced it from the start, but using metal increases the weight by a lot.
If I was flying it, the increase in weight would have far greater disadvantages, but now that Freya, who has a monstrous amount of mana, is controlling it, I decided that it would be better to increase the strength so it can handle even faster speeds than before.
"It feels a lot better than yesterday." (Freya)
Freya talked enthusiastically beside me.
The aircraft is already able to go twice the speed we were going yesterday.
"You can accelerate a bit more if you want, but don't even think about going any faster than that." (Kearuga)
"Okay, I won't increase the speed anymore." (Freya)
Hearing her joyful voice made me think that it's not a good idea to believe in her words. I'll forcefully decelerate it if I need to.
If I just made the whole aircraft out of orichalcum, it would be light, but also strong enough to handle Freya's full power.
However, the problem is that I don't know how many times I need to impregnate Guren to get that much orichalcum.
It's not realistic.
Thanks to her growth from yesterday, Freya has learnt to check the compass while advancing in the direction I tell her to go to.
That being said, she's not good at reading maps, so even if I tell her where to go on the map, she doesn't even know where she is, so she doesn't know which direction to fly either, and even when I told her where to go, after a while, she couldn't tell how far she had progressed.
… You need good enough knowledge and intuition to read the map though, so it's unfair of me to want Freya to be able to do this.
That's why she needs me as her navigator, but I'm also here to guarantee her safety.
Since we flew faster than I expected, we landed to take a break and replenish ourselves and then flew off again.
… At this rate, we're going to be above the enemy's heads before they even get to the ravine.
I thought we would just barely make it when we departed, but sacrificing the weight for a higher speed succeeded, and Freya didn't do anything reckless.
Still, we can't relax just yet.
We definitely can't afford to fail this.
Our ambush will determine how many of the five thousand soldiers will enter the Dioral Kingdom territory.
If we can't take care of the majority here, thousands of citizens in the Dioral Kingdom will have to shed blood.
I'm not saying this out of my sense of justice. This country is my toy. I won't forgive anyone that steals from me.
"It's about time. Freya, raise the altitude." (Kearuga)
"Okay!" (Freya)
Normally, you're supposed to change direction by adjusting the wings, but it's not good to make the aircraft weaker by using that adjustment mechanism.
That's why I use the wind to change direction, but Freya skillfully pushed up the nose of the plane with the wind. Great, she's completely better than yesterday.
We continue rising, higher and higher.
I put mana into my eyes to activate both my【Jade Eye】and my【Kokushigan】.
The【Jade Eye】has the power to see far away things, enhance my kinetic vision and find out the essence of things in my vision, and my【Kokushigan】has the power to see several seconds in the future.
By using my【Jade Eye】, I see the enemy troops in a considerable amount of rows, because of their number. While looking at the soldiers' capability, I choose the bombing point that would cause the most damage.
The aircraft stopped at an altitude of two thousand meters and then started falling down.
Freya started chanting.
A magician's greatest weakness is their chant.
Elite magicians are able to cast up to rank three magic without chanting, depending on their training.
However, you need to chant for higher ranked magic no matter what, and you can't chant while doing something else either.
Since more than ninety percent of your mind is focused on it, you can't defend yourself while chanting.
That's why I don't use anything higher than rank three magic when I'm fighting on the front lines.
However, higher ranked magic has greater strength, so even if you have to take some risks, it's good to use it.
You need to reserve plenty of time to chant, as high-rank magic can change battles completely.
However, enemies need to be in the range of the magic, and you can't let them aim for you, which is why they always aim for magicians in wars.
"However, there's no risk of that if you chant in the sky." (Kearuga)
After all, we're two thousand meters in the sky.
Nothing can reach us when we're this high.
Freya can chant safely without needing any guards protecting her.
On top of that, she's able to aim wherever she wants to since we're right above them.
There's another advantage to attacking from the sky.
When you shoot enemies that are far away, you need to make the magic fly in an arc, but Freya can just shoot it straight down without having to do so.
Since we're above them, her accuracy and range were increased greatly.
The magic that Freya's trying to cast has a range of two hundred meters.
However, that range will at least double if she's shooting it downwards.
… Ever since I learnt of the aircraft, I had always thought that its compatibility with magicians was the best.
I'm going to prove that thought here.
The aircraft accelerated as it was pulled by gravity.
Freya opened her eyes, and in her hands, there was a red, blazing mass of mana.
I look at the ground with my【Jade Eye】, where I could see the enemy army marching through the narrow ravine path.
I adjust the angle of Freya's hand since I'm in charge of helping her make the bombing successful. With this eye, I'm able to bomb the most effective point.
Not a single soldier of the enemy army had noticed us, as they hadn't expected an attack from far in the skies.
Six hundred, five hundred meters, alright, let's shoot it.
Just as I thought that.
We were bombarded with white, shining mana that pierced through the aircraft and turned it into pieces, and Freya's magic discharged. I received serious injuries as I was engulfed by that flame explosion… I saw a future where that happened.
That's the power of the magic eye that the god bird gave me, the【Kokushigan】.
If I'm able to see it, I can deal with it.
I too fired a lump of mana and adjusted the trajectory so that it would hit the one I saw in the future.
The two lumps of mana collided, cancelling each other out, and we pierced through that light with the aircraft.
"Bad luck, Bullet!" (Kearuga)
He’s able to predict unpredictable attacks, and his bombarding has the greatest range among all heroes. He can make the impossible, possible. That's right, he predicted that we would come.
There's no way I would underrate Bullet.
I'm the one that detests him the most and acknowledges him the most, after all.
"Fire!" (Kearuga)
"Rank seven magic…【Star】!" (Freya)
Rank five magic is said to be the limit for humanity. Freya was able to perfect rank seven magic, which even surpasses rank six magic that crosses that limit.
A magic that only Freya was allowed to use, was fired.
It was like an ultrsmall sun.
The air around it warped in heat as it fell.
Even though the miniature sun hadn’t even hit the ground yet, soldiers within a few hundred meters of it burnt to death, to the point that it was like they weren't even there in the first place.
Freya continued controlling the aircraft after she had finished firing the magic and made a steep swoop upwards. It's a move that she practised multiple times before we had departed.
The second she did so, the miniature sun exploded, scattering flames several kilometers away.
I check the damage to the enemies with my【Jade Eye】.
With just one magic spell, although this is a rough estimate, over two thousand soldiers died, and more than a thousand soldiers suffered serious injuries from the aftermath.
Furthermore, both sides of the path crumbled down as they were devastatingly damaged, so the path was blocked up by earth and sand.
… As expected of the magic that was called war-class magic in the first world.
"How was it, Kearugsama?" (Freya)
"Perfect. The vanguards were annihilated. One of the heroes was buried too." (Kearuga)
I made the centre of the explosion aim towards a place that would bury the most enemies, but I also aimed for the people with strong mana.
… Strangely, although I couldn't aim for Bullet because he hid his presence and mana, I was able to get another hero instead.
There are around two thousand survivors, and a thousand of them are severely wounded. Normally, they would decide to retreat.
Most of these soldiers are probably useless.
They didn't lose the war, they were just annihilated during their march, without even knowing what had happened… they don't know when the same thing will happen again. Their hearts should be broken.
Being able to attack from the sky, means that I can aim at them whenever and wherever.
Normal people definitely wouldn't be able to keep marching in that situation.
The soldiers will most likely bring back the information to their country and stop the reinforcements.
After all, even if their reinforcements did come, they would definitely go through the same thing. As long as they aren't too incompetent, I'm sure they'll do that.
That was my real objective.
No idiot would run away from a war he can win. By showing off how much of a threat we are, we can make them negotiate with us.
On top of that, this ambush will become an extremely strong card to use when we're negotiating.
… I can tell them that we'll use the same magic from the sky onto their capital if they try anything again.
They can't stop us from invading with an aircraft. In reality, I'm able to annihilate their higher-ups whenever I want to.
"Kearugsama, how was my magic?" (Freya)
"It was great. You controlled the aircraft well too. I didn't think you could do everything so perfectly." (Kearuga)
I praise her in honesty, as she did better than I thought she would.
"I'm happy. So, well, when we return, can you give me a reward? I want your love. Since I fired magic with all my power, I'm throbbing and throbbing so much that I just can't help it." (Freya)
She looked at my face with moist eyes.
I certainly did notice that smell, and I have been hearing a damp sound since before.
It seems like Freya has become an unbelievable pervert.
"Sure, that's fine… I was thinking of doing it in the sky, but I guess that's too dangerous. Let's do it when we return." (Kearuga)
"Yes!" (Freya)
"I'll say this just in case, but don't hurry. If you break the aircraft again, I'm going to postpone your reward." (Kearuga)
"… I understand." (Freya)
She definitely didn't understand.
Although I strengthened it, it still can't take Freya's full power. She was almost about to break it again.
Now then, that magic fell where the people with strong mana had gathered.
I was able to confirm that we destroyed one of their heroes, but I don't know if we dealt with Bullet.
Well, he's probably still alive.
I'm the only one that can kill him. I’m sure of it.
TL Note: Sorry, but I'm going to quit translating. This past term has been so tough, that it was really hard to fit everything in. Translating has been a fun experience, and although I still suck, it was a great hobby to have. I hope someone picks this novel up, but otherwise, I might be able to translate some in the summer holidays (around the end of the year for me) but for now, this will be the last chapter of Kaifuku Jutsushi that I translated. Thanks for reading~