Chương 57: 56 – Ambush

I stumbled, and I realized I wasn't alone. Everyone who'd been hit by that bag of powder was almost instantly falling all over themselves. The world began to swim around me. Panic seized my heart, but it didn't reach my limbs as the world became… loopy. I remained standing, but I realized suddenly that I was one of the only ones. The general had toppled to the ground, and my Uncle had fared little better, catching himself on a nearby tree.

"Shoound the alarm!" the general shouted incoherently.

"Dragon! It's that damn dragon Neogon failed to kill!"

"Heh," I murmured though aching lips.

"Sounds like you didn't kill it either?" He didn't hear me. I was suddenly thirsty. Why was everyone lying down?

"My… my horn. Where is my horn!?" Uncle Markus shouted before he began to stagger away. A clink louder than the sound of his greaves drew my eye as I watched him drop the gorget I'd made for him.

"Gosh its pretty. I wonder if I could make things as useful as my talent someday…" I murmured, entranced by the comma and backward comma etched into the metal. The little heart. My symbol.

"Why are all my items labeled so plainly, anyway? Like… Reid!? Reid, buddy. Your bow? It's called a Lacquered Yew Bow! Not like… Super awesome bow of mighty archer… archery. And dad's scythe? That awful thing? It's just "Carbon War Scythe!" Not "Nightmare Maker" or "fucked up sword on a stick!" Reid? Where are you?" I looked around. Reid wasn't anywhere near me.

"Ohhh! Hah! Reid's back at the wagon! I better go the…. Go… there!" I said, my words slurring. I was talking to myself?

"Something feels wrong," I murmured. The dragon suddenly roared again; the sound seemed to have physical force to it, but with the cloudy sky, I had no idea where it was.

"April… she watched a movie about dragons! They don't look the same," I said. My mind felt fuzzy. I was… amused. Laughing. The General was on the ground, murmuring about how heavy his armor was, and something about Neogon. My face stung a little. Markus had gone… somewhere.

"General? General! What is going on!?" Someone shouted. I turned and saw Healer Ake. She was an older woman. More handsome than pretty, but probably only in her late forties. I sort of wondered if she might've had a little crush on Normuran. That was crazy, though. Who could have a crush on that old geezer? Still, the idea latched on in my mind, and I couldn't let it go. I was daydreaming about attending their wedding when a sudden thump distracted me. I turned to see that Mevery had fallen off his horse.

"Hah! Y-you're supposed to be on the horse! Uh. H-hey uh. Are you okay?" I asked. He was just lying on the ground, and he seemed really out of it! He was supposed to be a professional!

"Trolls and… goblins… ahead," He murmured.

"Gotta tell. Gotta tell…"

"Trolls and goblins suck!" I told him as I reached him.

"Fuck rift monsters!"

"Fuck rift monsters!" Someone else echoed from the ground, and I beamed, as we both laughed. The private squirmed, shaking his head as if to clear it. He rose to unsteady feet.

"No! Nn-no! I have to tell the general! There are trolls and goblins here! Ogres! Lots!"

"We're in the army!" I said.

"There are no trolls and goblins in the army! Hah! Stupid…."

"What in the hells is going on!?" cried the healer. She approached me, as it seemed that the demoted private and I were the only ones still on our feet. That was quickly remedied as the private fell back on his ass again. He really was a shitty soldier. In fact, why was I hanging out here with him? Where was Reid? I had thought he was here. I'd just been talking to him…

"Private? What happened?"

"Huh?" I asked, attention returning to the healer.

"Oh! There was a dragon, and then everybody decided to lay down! You didn't hear it? It's pretty loud."

"Of course I saw the dragon! Why is everyone acting like brain-dead morons?" she asked heatedly.

"Stop yelling at me!" I winced, folding in on myself. The woman immediately calmed. She reached out to me and green light lanced toward my head, but it just tickled a little. My face started to feel better!

"El… Elmerina. That's your name, right? Can you please tell me what happened?" she asked calmly.

"I inhah… I haled… I breathed in some powder? Things got dizzy," I said, feeling muddled.

"Poisoned. The command staff has been poisoned?" she asked.

"Really!? I hope not!" I shouted. The woman seemed to grow angry at that, and I giggled. Nausea was replaced by amusement almost instantly. Something was wrong but I couldn't wrap my head around what. Thoughts swam in and out of my mind with no traction.

"Maybe you would be a good fit for Normuran. You both scowl so much!" I said. The woman's eye twitched. Your Chemical Resilience skill has improved! Huh. Chemical Resilience. I had thirty-one points in that now. I only got points in that whenever I was around the Pepper Paste! Mom was so pissed when we found out the bell peppers I'd bought diluted the formula instead of making it stronger. I'd bought so many bell peppers.

"Oh!" I realized as I glanced back at the notification.

"It's over thirty! I can put points in it now! Mom said I shouldn't waste points in a skill under level thirty!" I opened my menu, feeling like I'd accomplished something. A creeping sensation was crawling up my back. Distant grunts and familiar noises filled my ears. Noises that reminded me of the troll attack at my lab. The day my sheltered world had been broken open, and then again when the actual attack came. I didn't like that.

"For Tacuria!"

"Pemolar!" Came a sudden cry as men and women began rushing past me, weapons drawn. I screamed, shocked. Why was it so loud all of a sudden? They were shouting and angry, and I didn't understand why. I fell over, squawking as men shouldered past me in a disorganized tide. I winced as my head hit something hard, but fortunately, it didn't hurt much.

"The gorget," I murmured.

"I bet it would look pretty cool on me. Oh! It gives Clarity! It was supposed to help with that, right?" I grabbed the item. It was hard to get the string loose. My fingers felt slow and clumsy, but it was only held together with a thin leather strap tied in a knot. It was like the top of one of Haddy's dresses! Eventually, I managed to untie the strap. I'd have gotten it done sooner if it weren't for all the people shouting around me.

Lights were starting to flicker in the distance, and there was a smell in the air like someone was cooking something foul. I didn't like it. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Something told me the item in my hands might help, so I put the gorget around my neck and fastened it. Nothing happened. It felt like something should. Something about the gorget and being confused? My uncle was gone, though. I needed to find him! He couldn't have put it on anyway.

Not while wearing full plate armor, but I thought I needed to get it to him. I turned, intending to go return this to my uncle, when I spotted my menu again. It was set off to the side, which happened whenever something in the real world distracted me from my menus. I hadn't dismissed it. What had I… Oh! Right! I'd been planning to… ahah! There it was! Chemical Resilience! I dropped all forty-seven points into it because it was over level thirty! That was what Mom told… me… to.. Focus returned in an eyeblink.

Screams that had just been loud noise before suddenly filtered in. Scenes that I'd witnessed but failed to comprehend moments ago snapped into sharp clarity, and dread filled the pit of my stomach. The command staff of the entire brigade had been hit with a… a powder. Some sort of weapon designed to utterly confuse anyone who breathed it in.

Chemical Resilience, a skill I'd only gained in any sufficient quantity in the past few weeks due to my pepper paste, was the only reason I'd even managed to retain a hint of my sanity. The general was gritting his teeth, angrily struggling to stand up, but instead of standing, he just kept pushing his head into the corner harder. Mevery was lying on his back, dancing his hands around like he was conducting an orchestra, while singing a jody and giggling.

"Trolls and Ogres and Goblins and more! Let me tell you what you're in for!" Uncle Marnakus was gone. He'd seemed a bit more lucid than the rest of us, and I wondered if he had some skill like Chemical Resilience to help him, but it hadn't been enough. Hadn't he been asking for his horn? I thought about asking what happened, but I knew what happened. I just needed a minute for my mind to process it. People kept streaming by either shouting for friends or dashing toward an oncoming horde of goblins and trolls.

"That… that powder turned me into a fucking imbecile!" I breathed.

"Private? Private, are you okay?" came the sudden voice of Healer Ake. She'd been healing the demoted sergeant, who appeared to have gained a head wound when he fell, but she'd noticed when I started speaking again. I shuddered and hugged myself.

"Th-they took my mind. It was like I was drunk and high and apathetic all at the same time. Confusion. So much confusion I couldn't even tell I was confused."

"How did you recover?" she asked. I shuddered again, my whole body shaking.

"I'm… not sure I did. It's still in me. It was just…. Just dumb luck. I gained a point in Chemical Resilience. A skill I have. It hit thirty one and so my stupid brain dumped all my free points into it." The woman's eyebrow rose.

"Perhaps not stupid at all. My own level in that skill is in the mid-sixties. Maybe that's why I don't seem so affected."

"What do we do? Who… who is supposed to lead if the entire command staff is…" I paused, gesturing to the General.

"... like this?" Yet another roar from the massive dragon cut through the sky, and my eyes were instantly drawn upward. The dragon dropped through the low clouds. Two short legs the size of tree trunks and a belly that looked like the underside of an oil tanker made up its undercarriage. Two black wings that must've been fifty feet long each were held back as the dragon dove. It came down at an angle, swooping across the front line of soldiers, just behind the battle lines.

"Look out!" I screamed uselessly as I watched the gaping maw open, displaying a row of teeth each nearly as large as my entire body. Fire burst from the creature's open maw, engulfing the shocked soldiers in a line of devastation across the clearing. Screams and the smell of charred flesh filled the air, and bile rose in my throat. It was happening again, only this time it was worse. Dad? Could he help? I knew his scythe was strong, but could it do something about a dragon?

The dragon released its massive wings and caught the air, soaring back into the sky over the lake to the west. As I spotted her again, all coherent thought fled my mind. I'd seen her before but I hadn't believed it.

"Impossible!" Ake breathed. She'd seen it too. In nearly twenty years, no one had managed to tame any sort of rift monster. It was absolutely impossible. And yet, both of us had seen her. The blonde woman riding atop the back of the dragon, strapped in by an honest-to-god saddle, had a look of manic glee in her eyes to rival that of any rift monster. Where she and her awful mount flew, my countrymen burned. I snarled, instantly beginning to work out ways to fix the problem.

Stopping that dragon was the number one priority, and just because it seemed directed, that didn't make it unique. Even as it flew, soldiers jumped to heights high enough to meet it, attempting to rake spears or axes across its skin before it disappeared above. Most of their attacks missed, the dragon moving far too quickly to take any damage, but it hadn't escaped flawlessly. These soldiers had fought dragons before.

One particular arrow seemed to pierce the clouds as it just barely missed, its shaft breaking the sound barrier with a loud snap as it flew. For just a moment, a shaft of pure sunlight crept through the clouds before being swallowed by the weather. I grinned. I knew that bow. The smoke and flames suddenly cleared, and I realized that things might not have been quite as terrible as they'd first seemed.

Fire mages bearing sergeant and arc sergeant insignia all along the front were holding up hands and controlling the freely given fire before directing it towards goblins and trolls, while their more martial compatriots held off the lumbering beasts with sword and shield. There was no organization. Men fought in small pockets against entire bands of goblins, or one-on-one with Ogres. Arrows flew from behind me, and magic sliced through the air, mostly gouts of flame, seeking to slay the rift monsters.

The monsters themselves seemed to know there were defenseless targets, though, and took every opportunity to disengage and circumvent fights with armed defenders in order to get at the confused ranks behind them. Many of the soldiers here, even without their commanders, knew how to fight. The problem was all of us fresh recruits who were madly running around, screaming. I wanted to join them. More and more goblins poured out of the trees, as if guided by a general of their own.

How had so many of them gotten here without being noticed!? I assumed Maulander hadn't felt much need to scout so far away from either the Eschal border or the rift front, and rift monsters weren't the type to lay ambushes! They couldn't sneak up on the deaf! So how!? Was the general just that incompetent!? I supposed it didn't matter. What mattered was that they had. Now, I had two choices. I could try to get the gorget to my uncle and hope he could take command of this massacre, or try to bring down the dragon.

In the end, simple expedience chose for me. I didn't think I'd be able to get the gorget around his throat while he was wearing full armor. There was something I could do about the dragon, though. I had a plan. It wasn't complicated, so I thought it had a chance of working.

"Healer Ake! Catch!" I said as I hastily pulled the gorget off my neck and tossed it to her.

"What is this?" she asked. I swayed a little as I climbed into the saddle of Mevery's horse. I was not the greatest horse rider, and still felt dizzy from whatever the blonde woman had dropped on us, but I recovered in time to answer.

"It's meant for my uncle, High Bannerman Marnakus, but I think anyone who could command this shit show and has a passive talent might benefit from it! The general's talent is active, so he can't use it!" I ducked, suddenly, far too late to dodge an arrow that zipped over my head. Thankfully, it hadn't even been aimed at me. It had just been close enough to provoke a reaction. I smiled as it sailed straight into a goblin's chest. Ake looked over the item, and her eyes widened when she saw its effect.

She turned back to me and nodded.

"I'll find him! I know the High Bannerman! You should get out of here!" I nodded back and turned the horse toward the backlines without another word.

"Spread out! Don't give the dragon an easy target!" I called, screaming at the large clumps of women and men I saw clambering together. At least a few people listened and spread apart as I rode. The horse was anxious, but I was already impressed with it. It hadn't run when a fucking dragon had come down out of the sky. Then again, it was a war-horse on the rift front. Maybe dragon attacks were everyday life for him? The bouncing of the gallop made me dizzy, but I didn't really have to look where I was going.

Even amid the sweat and rage of an active battlefield, I could still smell the barrels of pepper paste. I did the best I could to guide the horse through the press of soldiers running both toward and away from the fight. Feeling sick to my stomach, I chanced a glance back toward the front line. Just because some of the fire had been redirected didn't mean we hadn't suffered any casualties.

The charred remains of soldiers lay all along the front lines where the dragon's breath had landed, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before it came back for another pass. Tacuria had more fire mages than any other nation, but even they could only do so much against dedicated dragon fire. The powder packet hadn't managed to affect even a quarter of the entire army. Just everyone near the front at the time. The blonde woman knew where to drop her strike. It hadn't been difficult.

There were flags everywhere denoting the general's caravan. The woman had targeted that, but if she was resorting to tactics like this, I had to believe that the force of enemies wasn't so large that it could simply overwhelm us. Mevery had been right in the middle of reporting the large group of rift monsters just before the dragon had descended, so it wasn't as if the ambush was perfect. Just well timed. Even with the command staff taken out of action, the soldiers had been quick to form a battle line.

If we could just take down the dragon, the brigade should be more than a match for the trolls and goblins. Even the ogres weren't a threat like the dragon was. Almost absent-mindedly, I reached into my pocket and fiddled around until I found the small rod Mom had given me. She'd told me to snap it if there was an emergency, and I honestly couldn't think of a bigger one. I had no idea what she might be able to do about it, but I hoped she had a plan.

Mine was already quite the gamble, but at least it took me away from the ogres and trolls. It felt like an eternity, but it was probably only a few seconds before I reached our wagon, and I spotted Reid right nearby it, with his bow drawn, arrow nocked and ready for the dragon to descend below the clouds at any time, features iron as he concentrated. I let loose a sigh of relief. He was alive. He was okay.