A troop of monsters was coming this way, and the whole school was in an uproar.

Most of the students had gathered in the auditorium.

Compared to the underclassmen, the upperclassmen were much calmer.

It was probably because, as the instructor said, they had to be mobilized in the vent of an emergency, and even the underclassmen whose families made a living out of fighting were unfazed.

Being accustomed to actual battles was exceptional.

Those who were absent were the elite upperclassmen and Epona.

Once you became an upperclassman, you would frequently join a team of five people and be dispatched, so you could immediately go into action even during such a state of emergency.

The most outstanding team even among our seniors was already off to intercept the monsters.

The instructor went on stage and started speaking.

[Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one reason why we have gathered you all here. Our academy is being targeted by a swarm of monsters. Hundreds of them are closing in from all sides, and their number keeps growing as we speak. Their troops are a mix of orcs and goblins. Even now, their number keeps multiplying. …And we are almost certain that there are demons among them.] (Instructor)

I figured.

Monsters were incapable of teleporting themselves.

It was possible that they had just spawned naturally, but it rarely happened, plus it was normally impossible for such a large pack of specific monsters to spawn en masse, or even march in groups like that.

This could only mean one thing.

There was a demon at work.

If there was a demon who could create and control monsters, this would easily explain the sudden appearance of the monsters, and if he could produce this many, then he had to be a fairly high-ranking one.

Those kinds of demons were most dreadful.

At any rate, if he managed to get over the outer wall by himself and summon large numbers of monsters once he was on the inner part of the campus, then most of the defensive fortifications wouldn’t change a thing anymore.

[I sent a request for knights to be dispatched here, but it will take them half a day to arrive at the earliest. And the enemy is at our doorstep. In other words, we teachers and you students will have to do something about them.] (Instructor)

That statement about knights arriving in half a day was no more than wishful thinking of the highest degree.

In reality, we wouldn’t see them before a whole- no, two whole days.

[Everyone, prepare yourselves. We have nowhere to run, so make every effort possible, for this is an all-out war! Those who don’t have any power, fight without it! We’ll never win if nobody here shows off their strength!] (Instructor)

The place turned silent.

Some of the freshmen were trembling.

They couldn’t help it since they were about to be forced into a scene of carnage without warning.

The instructor proceeded with his explanation.

Apparently, we would act in groups of one senior and five to ten juniors.

We would fight in accordance to his instructions.

And if we ever spotted a demon, we had to contact him immediately. Engaging the demon ourselves was forbidden.

…Because the demon lord and his men could only be killed by the hero.

Not because they were unbelievably strong, but because it was part of their natural disposition.

Hence the fact that the goddess forbade me from killing the hero until she had killed the demon lord.

Each freshman scattered and met up with an upperclassman.

But among them, one group was an exception.

[Well, who would’ve thought that we would be the only ones without a senior to protect us?] (Lugh)

I laughed lightly.

That’s right, among all the groups composed of one senior plus several juniors, only ours consisted of the usual members.

Or rather, it was the usual members minus Epona.

I thought our notoriety had dropped following our last battle, but perhaps it hadn’t after all.

[I don’t mind it. I’m guessing they couldn’t find any other capable fellow for us, so putting us in our usual group was the easier choice.] (Neusch)

Part of Neusch’s statement was just bravado.

The other part of it stemmed from his self-confidence, but even so, it didn’t hide his anguish.

Neusch lost confidence in himself after the battle from the other day, and this had been dragging on ever since.

The upperclassmen left the auditorium with the underclassmen.

They instantly gave their instructions, and the underclassmen listened and obeyed.

Only we were left behind in the vast auditorium.

However, we didn’t receive any instruction.

[Does this mean we have freedom of action?] (Dia)

[I don’t think that’s the case.] (Talt)

As if to match Talt’s statement, the instructor came to us.

[I want to give you four a special mission. I could say it in front of the regular students, but if this turns into a war of attrition, then we’ll undoubtedly lose. Because our last ray of hope is the hero, and there is only one of him.] (Instructor)

Although we had the perpetual killing machine known as Epona with us, there was only one of it.

Therefore, she could only defend in one direction.

And yet, the enemy was coming at us from multiple directions.

We couldn’t see the end of their reinforcements either.

Aside from Epona, everything and everyone would fall in a few hours, and the collapse of the places where Epona wasn’t would be clear as day.

None of this was a coincidence. The demons put together a strategy so it would play out that way.

In that case, we might as well turn the school grounds into a battlefield.

We could open the gates and draw the enemy in.

If enemies from all directions were gathered in a single place, we could leave it all to Epona afterwards.

…If we did that, most of the students would die, either from being overrun by monsters or in the aftermath of Epona’s attacks, but this was the most pragmatic method.

Although, Epona might hesitate once again for fear of getting her allies caught up in her rampage and become useless as a result.

Since there was that to consider as well, the instructors would probably not resort to that method.

[Lugh Tuatha Dé. There is only one condition for victory. Before we’re exhausted and invaded from somewhere, we search for the demon, then we have the hero defeat him. The four of you have one mission, to find the demon.] (Instructor)

This was our only option.

As long as the demon was defeated, the number of monsters would cease to increase, and they would be left with no leader.

If that happened, then the odds would finally be in our favor.

I exchanged glances with everyone here and nodded.

[Understood. Instructor, we shall prioritize the identification of the demon while defending the facilities.] (Lugh)

[And I shall keep hope.] (Instructor)

I think the teams made only of seniors were probably given the same order.

Simply put, all the people who had the spare energy to do something else while fighting at the same time were given this order.

_______________________________________

The war had begun.

We were in the east. Epona was defending the north, where there was the largest number of enemies, while on the three remaining sides, the enemy’s military forces were evenly split.

There were two lines of defense in the east.

The first line of defense was quite far ahead, with a team comprised only of upperclassmen putting up a fierce fight.

Their moves were highly advanced and coordinated, it was at a level where they could immediately make a difference even if they belonged to the chivalric order.

They paid no mind to the monsters they omitted, and kept their own physical and mental strength in check so as not to overwork themselves.

And as for the monsters they omitted, the second line took care of them.

That line was protected by teams of underclassmen led by their seniors.

The second line was divided into a vanguard and a rearguard, the vanguard was fighting so as to defend the second line of defense, while those in the rearguard were each casting their best magic spells from behind.

This was working well.

The upperclassmen were making good use of their inexperienced underclassmen.

Clearly defining what to do and letting them do only what they could do was a good initiative.

[Whoa… ! Our seniors are reliable alright.] (Dia)

Dia was expressing her amazement at the second line of defense as the sorcerers fired their magic from the back.

The seniors, who were supervising the juniors, weren’t merely giving them instructions, but also following up appropriately.

They managed to deal with the enemy without endangering themselves.

Right now, we were fighting as part of the second line.

First of all, we waited and observed.

I understood the situation somehow. We had to make our move soon.

[Neusch, Dia, Talt, we’re going to join the first line. Alright? We do as we discussed before coming here, and we find the demon.] (Lugh)

In order to locate the demon, we needed to go to the front line.

However, doing so was risky.

I asked the others if they were prepared for it.

[I am, let’s go!] (Talt)

[I have to lend my strength to Epona!] (Dia)

[Good grief, if Dia-kun and Talt-kun are going to say that, then I can’t chicken out now, can I? I’m going for it too.] (Neusch)

Such reliable comrades.

Now we were ready to fight.

And hopefully, we would be able to pinpoint the demon’s location.

_______________________________________

I went to the front line and kept fighting.

It was a raging battle.

…And the enemies were stronger than the orcs from back then too.

I enhanced my physical abilities with my mana.

The amplitude of my strengthening had increased from one that was considered normal for regular people to one that had reached the utmost limits of any regular people.

[Talt, have you mastered your eyes?] (Talt)

[Of course. I will not make the same mistakes as before. What about you, Dia-sama?] (Talt)

[…I’m fine too. I’ve completely shut them off.] (Dia)

Talt had gotten used to them, and Dia was accustomed to manipulating mana. Looks like there was no need to worry.

Even if they fought on the front lines, they could fight safely.

Our moves were by no means inferior to those of our seniors.

In fact, you could say we were performing better than them.

With our participation, the speed of the monster extermination went up in one go.

One of the upperclassmen came our way laughing.

[I did hear that we got some monstrously powerful first-years, so it was you guys, huh? That was awesome! You guys are a great help!] (Senior)

[Thank you very much. It’s thanks to your follow up that it’s such an easy fight.] (Lugh)

[Hahaha! It’s a senior’s duty to protect his juniors after all. But say, are you guys that eager to take charge of ass-kicking?] (Senior)

As he said, we were fighting at full throttle without considering the pace distribution.

[We have no intention to take charge here. Our mission is to search for the demon, and we are taking the appropriate measures for that.] (Lugh)

[Search, huh. So that’s how it is… Hey, Grantz, Bachar, Reina. Fight as hard as you can and give our juniors a hand with their plan! Same process and energy as them. That should do it.] (Senior)

[Got it.] (Grantz)

[I also thought of proceeding like that, but I didn’t think juniors would get ahead of me.] (Bachar)

[Such reliable freshmen. Leave it all to us.] (Reina)

Our seniors also removed their limiters and began to destroy the monsters with tremendous vigor.

As expected of an elite team.

To think they would catch on my aim in that single exchange just now.

Two hours had passed since the battle began.

Only that much time had passed, but the situation kept getting worse.

The wounded began to appear. They returned to the back lines, but as the number of people decreased, the workload left to those who remained increased, and enemies went past the front lines, causing the number of injured to go up and creating a vicious circle.

It was now impossible to work in rotation so we could rest our bodies.

The enemy was just too strong and too numerous.

As I thought, unless we identified the demon and called the hero Epona, it was a hopeless war.

There was no time to waste.

Which was why I had to place my bets.

Talt and Dia were already going all out without considering the pace distribution, and I was still killing monsters at a high pace relying on [Hyper Regeneration] myself.

This was what we needed to do to locate the demon.

Since the demon kept spawning monsters, we couldn’t reduce the enemy’s number no matter how many we killed.

However, if you pondered the matter with a cool head, you would realize something.

The demon who created those monsters was probably alone, and the monsters he created were on the move and coming to the battlefield.

If you followed the path their reinforcements took to come here, you would most likely find the demon at the other end.

I kept looking for that path while fighting them.

The enemy was no fool either, he was concealing himself so well that pinpointing his position was tough.

Therefore, I concluded that we needed to create a situation where he would have to generate large-scale reinforcements, which was why we cut down the number of monsters at once without caring for pace distribution.

Our target fell for it. Arranging a large amount of reinforcements made him screw up his concealment, and I finally found the way to the demon.

[Talt, Dia, Neusch. I’m gonna go find the demon. Once I’ve found him, I’ll send a signal flare. You guys stay here and support the front lines.] (Lugh)

[You mustn’t go alone, it’s too dangerous!] (Talt)

[There are things you can’t do unless you’re alone… From here on out, it won’t be a warrior’s, but an assassin’s domain of activity.] (Lugh)

Enemy reinforcements were coming our way.

This meant that I would have to move far beyond the defense line, alone and unassisted, and rush through a large army.

Of course, advancing forward while scattering the enemy was an impossible stunt.

Stealth and speed would be required here.

The ideal was to sneak past them without being noticed, which was one of my specialties.

So being alone was preferable.

[It’s true that I’m still unable to keep up with you, Lugh-sama. In that case, I shall defend this place of return that is yours.] (Talt)

[If you come back with any injury, I’ll get mad, okay?] (Dia)

[Leave it to me. Just one more thing, and I’m sorry to ask this of you both at such a time, but could you bless me with your kisses? Even I’m afraid of charging into such an army.] (Lugh)

[Yes, of course.] (Talt)

[I suppose I have to, Lugh.] (Dia)

I kissed and poured my mana into both of them.

Calling it a blessing was just for appearances. Both of them overdid it and had exhausted their mana reserves.

It was necessary that I replenish their mana, and by doing it this way, I could naturally provide them with my mana through kissing while concealing the fact that it was one of Tuatha Dé’s techniques.

It’s not like I wasn’t asking myself what the hell I was doing in the middle of a battlefield, but it was still much better than leaving them out of gas.

[I’m off.] (Lugh)

[Good luck!] (Talt)

[Lugh, once you come back, give me a normal kiss, okay!?] (Dia)

I smiled to them, took a deep breath, and started running.

I charged and slipped through the horde of monsters.

I was kind of curious to discover what sort of creature a demon was.