Chapter 1060

1060: An Army Crushed

Several Raydoss soldiers lost their lives with each of Fran’s swings. Then my spells turned them into balls of burning flesh.

On the other hand, Fran did not suffer a single scratch. All this cost her was a bit of mana.

Despite being a one-sided slaughter, the enemy soldiers weren’t all that bad. They had been decently trained in military warfare, so I think they’d fare pretty well against most monsters as long as they had some prior knowledge.

Their strategy involved using the vanguard to take the brunt of our attacks, while the surrounding spearmen and archers dealt damage.

Moreover, they seemed to have been trained mentally. A great deal of them were completely willing to sacrifice their lives in order to defeat Fran.

However, the conditions of this battle were stacked against them.

The battleground was a rather narrow region of the harbor, and the soldiers arrived here in waves, making it difficult to form proper formations. Their chain of command also seemed to be in shambles.

The guy we captured early was apparently the commanding officer of the division. Combat started before he could pass command to the second in charge, so there was a lot of confusion going on.

And of course the biggest problem, Fran was just too strong.

「Spare me!」

「GYAAAHHH!」

「Mommy!」

Regardless of how hard the Raydoss soldiers might try, they were simply shredded apart effortlessly. Meanwhile, none of their attacks could do a thing to us. Fran’s speed allowed her to evade practically everything, and our barriers repelled any stray shots.

The more reinforcements arriving to help only meant more corpses for us to pile up.

Despite being so eager in the beginning, the soldiers started hesitating.

Bodies were strewn throughout the harbor, with fish swarming around the corpses of their comrades that had fallen into the sea. The one responsible was a young-looking black cat girl. Their entire army was being crushed by a single girl, and they could do nothing in response. Such a scene was the stuff of nightmares.

Finally, a portion of them screamed and ran, having lost the will to draw their weapons.

Their commanders shouted at them about “violating orders” or something, but their ears were no longer capable of listening. That triggered a chain reaction which caused everyone else to start running too.

But at the same time, a new force entered the battlefield on the side of Raydoss: a pack of magical beasts.

At their front was a lion-like magical beast called a Sneaking Leo, which boasted excellent perception capabilities. Like the Lesser Roc, it probably had the role of security patrol.

There were a total of four lions, alongside a few wolf-like magical beasts, as well as ox-like magical beasts used to carry luggage.

「Grrrrrr!」

「Focus on your target! That little girl over there!」

「Grr…!」

The men behind them must be tamers. They scolded the beasts drooling over the dead soldiers by whipping them.

In addition, small bat-like monsters were swarming in the sky above us.

Some of the soldiers returned to their senses with the appearance of monster reinforcements on their side. Fran appeared to be helplessly surrounded and outnumbered. However…

（Do those monsters have good magic stones?）

『Yeah, they do.』

A swarm of monsters this weak is nothing compared to a horde of antidemons. If anything, I was glad to see magic stones coming to feed themselves to me.

We wiped the floor with them in less than five minutes, causing the soldiers to quickly resume their retreat.

Or rather, their situation was even more hopeless than before. They saw the beasts annihilated without a fighting chance, which also erased what was left of their sanity.

We could chase them down and eliminate a good deal of their numbers, but we chose not to this time.

『They’re finally taking action!』

「Nn!」

The Raydoss fleet, which was anchored in the Dars harbor, began shelling the port.

They must have considered Fran a huge threat, seeing how they started shelling without waiting for their allies to retreat. The brave Raydoss soldiers still remaining nearby Fran were blown to smithereens by the fleet’s cannons.

Fran grabbed one of the tamers by the neck and dragged him behind the earthen wall I built, in order to extract information out of him.

The tamer apparently thought he was abandoned after being subjected to allied cannon fire, so it didn’t take much to get him to talk.

We learned that the majority of Dars’s inhabitants were already evacuated, but there were still nearly 300 prisoners of war. Most of them were residents who failed to escape, or sailors, soldiers and adventurers who fought as the rearguard.

The healthy adults and children were to be shipped north by boat, while the injured and the elderly will be kept in Dars for the time being.

Meanwhile, the adventurers we rescued were the first wave to be transported, so it seems they’ve yet to transport anyone. In other words, all the ships in the harbor carry only Raydoss soldiers.

Incidentally, there were no Seedran ships here since all of them were deployed for the invasion of Bulbora.

（Master.）

Fran’s eyes glinted at the opportunity to strike. Well, eliminating the Raydoss fleet will ensure not only Dars’s safety, but Bulbora’s as well. She fully intended to settle things here and now.

However, I had some concerns.

『…They might have forces like Marle here as well. Can you fight someone being controlled against their will?』

（…I can.）

Fran nodded with a determined look on her face. I’d rather avoid another fight that might leave her with emotional scars, but…

There’s no way Fran would back down after coming this far.

『Okay. Let’s do it.』

「Nn!」

We tied up the tamer and threw him behind some cover. If he’s still alive after the battle, we can hand them over to the guild as an informant. If he gets caught up in the shelling… Well, tough luck. Shit happens.

Fran jumped out right when I erased the Great Wall.

『Let’s start this show with a big one.』

「Okay!」