Stealth's Return

The end was coming. Soldiers fighting on top of the walls were in total despair. Their commander was killed in battle, and a dragon was flying overhead.

A typical soldier would be trained to do their best to accomplish their mission even after the commanding officer died. Even with the odds stacked against them, they would do everything they could do serve their country.

But Dream Maker operated in a small world surrounded by walls for more than five centuries. Not once had the city been in danger, and the only danger that the soldiers faced was when they hunted monsters for a living.

With no other nations around, they had absolutely no experience in large-scale wars. The soldiers themselves seemed to lack training as well.

As a result, the soldiers on top of the wall had no idea what to do. They believed they were dead. Some thought about their families, some shook their head frantically, and some hung their head low, petrified.

『Tsk. I knew it. Our troops are weak.』Gorja muttered as he pulled on the rope wrapped around the dragon's neck to keep his balance.『He was right. Even if we didn't get involved, the country would've fallen one day…』

Scaling the monsters stacked on top of each other, the first one—a giant lizard-like monster—finally made it to the castle wall. The soldiers couldn't even get up and run away. Weakly, they wielded their weapons, but the giant lizard didn't so much as flinch, and instead charged and swallowed the soldiers whole.

Men screamed. One after another, monsters scaled the wall.

『Weak! You're all too weak! This nation should just perish right now!』

Gorja pulled on the rope to make the dragon roar.

『Huh?』

He felt an impact from his side. Dragons did not come equipped with seatbelts. His body lurched, and he was thrown into the air.

『Oh, s.h.i.+t! What the h.e.l.l—』

Gorja managed to grab the rope and stop himself from falling. Dangling in the air, he caught a glimpse of a huge triangular-shaped figure flying across.

『Wh-What the…』

The next thing he knew, someone was standing on the dragon's back.

「I didn't know you could ride a dragon.」

The sun rose, casting a ray of light on the stranger's silver mask, reflecting a sparkling scarlet glow.

『Silver Face!』

Gorja clicked his tongue. He used his free right hand to draw the dagger from his waist and immediately threw it at Silver Face. But as he was dangling in the air, he couldn't put much strength into the throw, allowing the masked boy to easily dodge the dagger.

「It's not really me who'll decide whether to kill you or not…」Silver Face muttered as he crouched down and unsheathed a blade from his waist.

The blade was so overwhelming that even Gorja, who didn't have Mana Detection, couldn't keep his eyes off of it.

Silver Face casually swung the weapon, cutting off the dragon's wing. The creature shrieked in pain.

『What?!』

Gorja was shocked. Even a huge weapon like the blast cannon couldn't make a dent on the dragon's skin, let alone a normal blade. That's what he was told.

「Later.」

Silver Face jumped off the dragon's back. Wounded and unable to maintain its balance in the air, the dragon fell from the sky, spinning as it plummeted.

『Aaaah!』

Swung around in circles, Gorgia slammed and slid down the inner side of the wall along with the dragon.

『Gorja fell!』

『Wait, the dragon's bleeding. Someone's on its back!』

『What was that triangular thing just now?! You haven't seen that before, have you?』

『It leaped off the dragon and onto the wall!』

As monsters reached the wall, agitation filled the people around the blast cannons, but cheers erupted the moment the dragon spurted out blood and crashed to the ground. Gorja also fell from a height over about twenty meters; he wouldn't get out of it unscathed.

「King Doriachi!」Luke said.「Allow us, the Vireocean knights, to join the battle on the wall! We must save those who can't move!」

After Duinkler translated the knight's words, Doriachi nodded firmly.『Please do. The others will defend the wall as well. If the Yamamaneki rises back up again, we'll fire our blast cannons on it, so please don't block our line of fire.』

Led by Luke, the guards and rebel soldiers charged straight towards the wall. Doriachi breathed a sigh of relief.

『You really made me nervous, Silver Face.』

Leaping from the falling dragon and descending onto the castle walls, Hikaru activated the Gravity Balancer to break his fall. What greeted him was a h.e.l.lish scene—soldiers being devoured by monsters.

Hikaru inhaled deeply.『Move!』he yelled in their language.

He barely knew any other words. He then drew his revolver, aimed it at the giant lizard, and pulled the trigger.

『Wh-What is that?! Magic?!』

Burnt to crisp by the ball of fire, several giant lizards fell off the wall outside. A huge pillar of fire rose from the other side too.

『Move!』Hikaru shouted once more.

Snapping back to their senses, the soldiers acted immediately, striking at the monsters already on the wall and taking down those that were scaling it. Once they moved, they were very capable of fighting monsters.

Good, Hikaru thought, when his field of vision suddenly turned dark.

「Finally up, eh?」

The Yamamaneki wobbled as it stood up. Several shots were fired at it, blowing off its upper body. Hikaru turned around to see the blast cannon squad raising their hands and Duinkler waving both his arms wildly.

「Whoa. He's staring daggers at me.」

Ludend watched him with arms folded. He must've realized that Silver Face was one of the reasons that the revolt failed. The guards and the rebels had no choice but to work together, but somewhere within, the chief still wasn't completely convinced.

「I never really thought Koukimaru's side was this prepared.」Hikaru muttered.

Running on top of the wall, Hikaru activated his Stealth and cut down monsters coming through spots where there weren't a lot of men. As the sun rose higher up and visibility increased, he saw monsters from deep in the forest coming in droves.

「If they lose heart, we'll lose for sure… 」

Hikaru reached for his waist where the fully-charged bullets were.

「Let's end this with a bang.」