NOVEL WEB Chapter 28
As Charles explained the tactics to the soldiers, they immediately understood.
The soldiers were armed with swords and spears.
When faced with the enemy, they charged forward with their spears at the forefront, clearing the way, while we dealt with the surroundings.
The speed of clearing the path increased tremendously.
The entire city felt like a battlefield.
The sounds of fighting echoed from everywhere.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
As we got closer to the train station, loud explosions continued to ring out.
Several buildings were on fire or collapsed, which was quite dangerous.
What used to be just a street was often blocked by the debris of buildings, forcing us to find another way.
We arrived after going around the train station in the previous district.
In front of the station lay countless corpses of enemies, with no visible friendly soldiers.
“Could it be that Aila took them all down by herself?”
“It’s certainly possible. But where could she be?”
Boom!
A loud explosion was heard from inside the train station, prompting everyone to rush there.
Inside the station, Catherine was darting around, stabbing something with her sword.
The pierced opponent dissolved into smoke and reappeared some distance away.
An opponent against whom physical attacks were entirely ineffective.
“Is stabbing all you can do?”
“Shut up!”
Catherine silently chased and stabbed her opponent repeatedly.
A futile endeavor; if she kept this up, she would tire herself out and collapse in the end.
Whoosh!
Unable to watch any longer, Jema shot a fireball at the opponent.
The opponent had just absorbed Catherine’s attacks, but managed to dodge Jema’s fire.
“The weakness is fire.”
“Looks like a nuisance has barged in. Then, I’ll take my leave.”
His body dispersed like smoke, vanishing completely.
“Haah… haah… We need to hurry. Aila is in danger!”
Catherine, quite exhausted, pointed in one direction.
Though blocked by a stopped train, a faint aura could be seen emanating from there.
It was the energy that Aila usually emitted in small amounts.
Climbing over the train blocking the way and looking down, there stood Aila facing off against someone with a sword.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
It was obvious at a glance who had the favorable position in the fight.
A well-built man in no armor was pressing Aila back with a spear in hand.
As the man’s spear aimed at Aila’s shoulder, I instinctively threw my dagger.
Clang!
“What the?!”
The moment the man shouted and looked at me, Aila’s sword slashed his side.
“Ririan. Thanks for that, but you shouldn’t interfere.”
“Ugh!”
Having been cut deeply, the man covered the blood flowing from his wound and created distance.
“Damn it! I could have killed you!”
As smoke swirled around him, a gust of wind blew in.
The man enveloped in smoke disappeared with the wind.
“Who the hell was that?”
“Don’t you know? You saw his face.”
I thought hard about it, but I had never seen that face before.
“It’s Den.”
“Looks nothing like him!”
“That’s a mutant, and what we just saw is a clone that looks exactly like the original…”
Aila knelt down on one knee at her spot.
Upon closer inspection, her right thigh was covered in blood.
“Are you hurt?”
“A little.”
It was definitely not a minor wound. I picked up Aila and moved in the direction where everyone was.
Jema was flying one by one to help transfer people onto the train.
Charles was just finishing his ascent last.
“It’s all over.”
“Let’s get out of here first.”
The inside of the train station didn’t look particularly safe.
“What about Jere?”
“He went in through that hole in the ground over there.”
He probably returned to his lab.
Once we left the train station, someone was waiting with soldiers lined up.
“Oh.”
A person clad in shiny black armor came toward me.
After glancing briefly at Aila in my arms, she turned back and commanded the soldiers.
“The battle isn’t over yet. Eliminate all remaining enemies and return!”
The soldiers saluted sharply and scattered throughout the city.
“You’re hurt quite a bit.”
“No, not really…”
“You always say you’re fine.”
Her night-sky-like black hair swayed in the wind.
“You know what went wrong, right?”
“I do.”
I didn’t quite understand the conversation between the two.
Aila had made the clone Den, who looked like the enemy leader, retreat.
The person who had been in command at the hotel was also here, so what exactly had gone wrong?
“Where’s the command center?”
“JS Hotel.”
“You really like that hotel, don’t you?”
The soldiers insisted on helping Aila, but I refused.
The path back to the hotel was long, and no one spoke along the way.
Enduring the hellish silence, when we arrived at the hotel, the soldiers erupted in cheers of joy.
At first, I thought their cheers were for winning the battle, but soon realized otherwise.
Soldiers were lined up to the left and right at the hotel entrance.
“Greetings, Commander of the Knight Order!”
One soldier stepped forward, saluted, and quickly cleared the way.
Upon hearing the title Commander of the Knight Order, I understood why he had just looked down on Aila.
I didn’t know the exact hierarchy, but it seemed clear he was at least Aila’s superior.
We took the elevator up to the room in the hotel lobby.
As expected, the soldiers guarding the door had also gone out to protect the city.
Returning to the room, I carefully sat Aila down on the floor.
My hands and arms were drenched in the blood that flowed from Aila’s thigh.
When I tried to brush the blood off my clothes, it surprisingly flicked away like droplets.
“That outfit. It’s a nice one.”
The Commander of the Knight Order commented, slightly impressed, as he examined my clothes.
“Thank you.”
“Let me take a look at your injuries.”
The Commander inspected Aila’s wounds.
As he removed the gloves he was wearing, a pair of pristine hands emerged, emanating a blue light.
As the blue light seeped into the wound, the bleeding stopped and the injury began to heal slightly.
“Get proper treatment before a scar forms.”
“Got it. Sister. Ah!”
In an instant, the commander turned his attention to Charles, glaring at him.
“Will you be spilling what you just heard?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t.”
I had never seen Charles look so flustered. He fidgeted for a moment before ultimately leaving the room.
He probably returned to his own room.
“I’m late with my introduction. I am the Commander of the Knight Order, Carlos Lea. You can call me Lea or Carlos comfortably.”
“By the way, she’s my sister.”
Everyone’s attention focused in one spot at Aila’s words.
“Sorry, but you two don’t look alike at all. Especially without the ears and tail.”
“She’s a demon.”
As I paused to think about which of the parents, having both a demon and a beastman, might be the beastman, I asked.
“Which one is the beastman?”
“Our parents are both demons.”
“Well…”
When I looked at Aila, she remained silent.
“I was adopted. I came to our house when I was about five.”
“So, I couldn’t use the family name.”
“I’m sorry. If I had been the head of the family, I would have given you a name.”
“It’s okay. What’s in a name anyway?”
A conversation ensued that only the two could understand.
Knock knock.
Someone knocked on the door and entered, saluting stiffly.
“Reporting! We have eliminated the enemies within the city!”
“Understood. Prepare a summary and report it to me by evening.”
“Yes!”
The soldier quickly retreated after delivering the message.
“By the way, what are those guys?”
“They are a special forces unit from Latnia. I saw that clone Den earlier.”
“Special forces unit? They looked like a full battalion.”
There were indeed a large number of enemies.
If they were a team unit, they wouldn’t have thought to launch a surprise attack on the city.
The Commander of the Knight Order sat on the bed, lost in thought.
“I’ll take charge of this matter. You should rest and return to the capital.”
“Is that alright?”
“For this incident, you need to return for a direct report.”
The Commander of the Knight Order, who did not specify to whom he would be reporting, likely meant the Emperor or his close associates.
“Well then, everyone, rest up. You, boy. Thank your sister on her behalf.”
“No, it was nothing special.”
Without looking back, the Commander left the room.
Only then did the atmosphere in the room relax, and everyone collapsed onto the beds.
“Why didn’t you mention that you had a sister?”
“Was there a need to? You guys wouldn’t meet her anyway.”
Unless one were to become a soldier, it was unlikely to ever meet the Commander of the Knight Order.
Looking out the window, the view of the city resembled a wasteland.
Though we won the battle, many people had died, and there were a considerable number of injured.
I thought Latnia was a strange country in many ways.
Denying the acts of terrorism and the existence of clone Den.
Acknowledging either one would ultimately prove the other existed as well.
Thus, they acknowledge nothing.
“Is Roran not taking any action?”
“We already met.”
“Really?”
“Why do you think I sent Solche and Alium?”
In the past, Solche had shared with us about their mission.
Infiltration, intelligence gathering, elimination of key figures.
“If Latnia engages in this kind of terrorism, we’ll be executing it secretly from unknown locations.”
The war between the two empires was already taking place in the shadows.
Knock knock.
Someone knocked on the door and spoke from outside without entering.
“I’m a medic.”
“Come in.”
The medic, who opened the door and came in, looked quite exhausted.
His white coat was stained and messy, but no one said anything.
The medic approached Aila, wiped away the dried blood with cotton, and poured a liquid from a glass bottle.
“This medicine hurts more than the wound…”
“Still, at least it’ll heal nicely, right?”
The medic, with an expressionless face, took care of the situation before politely bowing and leaving.
“What kind of medicine is that?”
“It can reattach limbs if they are severed.”
“There’s such medicine?”
“But it’s extremely expensive. That medic probably never used it before.”
Such an expensive medicine would not be readily available to a typical medic.
Someone must have given it for Aila to use.
Once the wound healed, Aila took off her blood-stained clothes and pulled out a crumpled outfit from her bag.
“I’m not quite used to casual clothes.”
Short training shorts and a t-shirt.
It gave a stark contrast to the outfit she usually wore.
What looked somewhat like a soldier was really just due to her formal military uniform.
Aila, in casual clothes, looked every bit the girl of her age.