Dance with the Nightingale

Three days.

It took three days to complete all the preparations for the raid party to attack. The village of Loana had been armed to teeth in this period. The mayor's people along with mercenaries virtually transformed the village into a fortress ready to battle waves of monsters.

As the leader of the attack party, obviously, I was overseeing the preparations, at least at a peripheral level.

The thing was that everyone here was so used to their role that it didn't need me to interfere much. Of course, there were some changes that I did to 'usual' plan of action, but other than the change in potion's stock there weren't any major changes.

Normally, you'd expect the mercenaries to be slacking or something, but maybe it was their integrity, sense of belonging or maybe experience of failure, none of the slacked, like none at all! And I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with me.

Rose's people and the mercenaries, both consisted of locals and they surely wanted to protect their homes, their families. And with how experienced they were, they knew how important these preparations were and were working wholeheartedly.

As for me… I was sitting comfortably behind a desk in a makeshift office, working on learning a spell that allowed remote healing, as effective as a low grade healing potion.

All while feeling uneasy, even with all the preparations complete.

Why?

Because things were smoothly, too smoothly in fact. And that was not how I had written this world. As beautiful this world was, it was full of calamities, tragedies and bloodshed.

So, as a hurried soldier worked his way into the office and informed me, "Reporting Prince Rayne! The second scouting party has gone missing!", my lips curled into a smile.

'Now that's more like the world I know!', I thought inwardly while suppressing my smile and took a look at the documents that the soldier passed on to me.

Glossing over them, gave me much more information to work with. Apparently, Kade's mercenary group the Silent Dagger who was in charge of scouting had lost contact with their second scouting party that consisted of two humans, one rabbit, one lycan and one dryad.

Which was quite unexpected if you take the first scouting team's report into consideration that stated that there were barely any monsters in the deeper regions of the forest.

In fact, the first party's report had created some disturbance with the higher ups. Before they knew that the waves had arrived a few weeks earlier than usual but didn't give it much thought.

But now, if the forest was not teeming with monsters, then it meant the prediction of the monster waves had been incorrect to begin with.

And with tasks on the scale of cities, such fundamental mistakes meant they had wasted millions of Coles.

Their chain of thought was not exactly wrong. But when you know the real reason behind all these incidents, you just hope that those higher ups don't ruin anything and keep sucking on their thumbs.

As for their concerns, they didn't really waste their money here, because…

-Whistle…!

-Whistle…!

-Whistle…!

A piercing whistle resounded from the forest, followed by another and more. It was the alarm of the lookouts stationed in shallows of the Shawn forest.

Following that whistle, from the outer wall this time a red flare was launched in the sky, painting the sky red, carrying with it a numbing noise that could be heard throughout Loana.

Everyone in the village, be it a knight, a mage or even the mayor, looked at the light with trepidation and as the red faded from the sky, everyone in the village, just like cars after a red signal, exploded into motion.

…The monster wave was finally here.

The mercenaries, the knights, the officials, the merchants, the villagers, and the mayor, everybody started rushing to their posts.

The villagers started evacuating, gathering in the basement of the mayor's house which was actually larger than the mansion aboveground, with all the facilities that one could need for a week-long lockdown. With how old the mansion was, and how it was passed down to every next mayor, it was obvious that it had been specifically built as an underground base as well as a shelter.

Along with the villagers were the merchants of the flee market who had packed their stuff surprisingly quickly and had joined them.

Guiding the crowd were the officials working under Raon, who with practiced motions managed the evacuation. Tagging with them was a single cohort of knights ensuring everyone's safety. This cohort was joined up with six of Rose's personal knights as she evacuated to the basement as well, establishing the base and communicating the situation outside the wall. While another cohort joined them later, having searched for any leftovers and bringing them here, totaling the number of knights guarding the shelter to 32.

Not surprisingly, Knight Commander Grehwan, the leader of the knights was not with them. Instead, he was on the top of the walls of Loana, standing beside me as soldiers manned the magical cannons and ballistae arming the wall.

The main force stood tall below the walls consisting of around 70 knights, 140 mercenaries and around 200 mundane soldiers.

Of course, archers and pure spell casters who knew long range magic were up on the walls, ready to support the main force.

Of the 182 mercenaries only 40 of them knew such spells, most of them belonging to Elowen and Liora's mercenary groups, Song of the Forest and Velvet Thorn, which mostly had druids, forest fairies, and elves as its members. They did have some humans and beast-men too, for close combat situations, but they were sent to join the main force below.

The knights as well as mercenaries had divided the area they would handle, with knights at the center and the mercenaries at the flanks. And while the mercenaries spread out, giving every member a certain space to work with, the knights instead got into a close knit formation.

From above the formation looked like an inverted bow, with a kite in front. It was formed by two levels of tower shields, one on the ground and another mounted on top of the first one with spears poking out from the gaps between.

Narrow in the middle, the formation naturally divided the monsters and guided them to the kill zone, in the back which allowed the knights to attack from three directions, granted that the flanks are secure.

The knights were the strongest force here, with every member being an officially trained magic user with proper equipment and knowledge. After them were the mercenaries that were also magic user only units. Though strong, they couldn't compete with the knight's efficiency in killing monsters nor could their teamwork match the knights' formation.

Of course, there were some strong ones in the mercenaries too, like the leaders, the second in commands, or the third in commands, but after that the knights as a whole were stronger.

And then, there were the soldiers, who were mostly normal humans with little to no magic users among them.

It took around 10 mundane people to kill even an injured magic beast, so I knew they weren't there to fight monsters. Instead, their role was to support the magic users in battle. All kinds of support, from being a ranged support to even a bait, their only weapon being five oneshots that each soldier was assigned, and their wits of how they used them to survive.

As I watched these poor soldiers tightly gripping their weapons with a grim expression, Knight Commander Grehwan who was standing beside me, suddenly spoke, "I'm surprised Young Master didn't join the fray."

Without giving him a single glance, I replied, "I will, when I need to.", my eyes darting around, before locking on Syrus and Allen mingling with Ruhr's mercenary group below the walls.

Grehwan traced my gaze, "Are you perhaps worried about the kid?", he asked.

"Do I look worried, Knight Grehwan?", I asked back.

Nodding, he said "Figured… I wouldn't worry if I was in your shoes too, Young Master. I don't know why, but I just know that he will be an absolute menace."

I didn't react to his comment, but someone else, specifically Cana, who was standing beside me did. Her gaze boring a hole into the Commander's face.

Noticing that, the Commander clarified, "On the battlefield, I mean.", but that did not alleviate Cana's gaze on him.

So, he turned to me, "Did I say something wrong, Young Master?"

"She's just overprotective."

"I see…", he fell silent, looking forward as the trees in the shallows started shaking and last of the army got in its respective position, he demeanor turning severe.

"They're here, Young Master.", he said, just as first of them stepped out of the woods.

And he didn't need to tell me twice.

With one of my hands up in the air, I started channeling the light element, conjuring more and more of it. So much so that my trusty armor, Cales Ren III lit up, it's purple-ish magic veins turning golden as the light element quickly condensed above my palm – shinning so brightly that before I knew it everyone was looking at me bathing in a golden glow with a sun in my hand.

To them, I simply said, "Today, I ask you to fight without fear!"

In response, the golden sun flared brighter. Six massive magic circles appeared around it, spinning with divine force, and a seventh even larger magic circle, began to form, slowly moving to encompass the sun itself.

"Because today, we win! And only win. No losses. No deaths. So, stand firm—face them without mercy!"

At that exact moment, I clenched my fist. The final circle locked into place, sealing around the sun like a celestial vault. Then, with a flick of my hand, I hurled it high into the sky —where it hovered above the battlefield, pouring golden light across the field below.

"As this light shines above you... drive them back into the dark—[Solar Bastion]!!"

I said, inwardly feeling a little embarrassed about calling my spell's name in front of so many people – but that was it, I still had an army to command.

And that pressure was mounting.

So, as the monsters crossed that 300 meters mark I ordered, "First volley, fire!"

And just like that, my very first battle as a commander started.