Arena Chapter 191:

Laman City, Aman Empire .
This Amani city was bordering the northern border of the Arend Kingdom, and there were small scuffles between the two sides all the time, even before the war began .
Thanks to that, this city became something akin to a fortress with more soldiers than civilians . The absolute majority of the civilians were also just families of the soldiers .
As this city possessed fine barracks and walls for defense, it was natural that this was chosen as the basecamp for the conquest .

Nearly 200,000 Amani soldiers were constantly residing here, and they were prepared to invade the Arend lands upon immediate orders .
However, recently, there was a setback in their preparations .
They could only fight a proper battle if and once enough food arrived to feed the whole camp, but the supply could not meet the demand .
As they weren’t given supplies in time, the soldiers began to voice their dissatisfaction as they were skipping one, or even two meals a day .
At this rate, their morale would collapse .
Meanwhile, a single satellite in space was video recording the entire situation from above .

***

Dana analyzed the distribution of the soldiers throughout Laman City through the satellite .
While he was doing that, Odin entered his secret room, which was at the end of the corridor .

“How is it going?”
“Mr . Kim is retreating safely . ”
“What are you looking at now?”
“The situation in Laman City . ”

Only then did Odin have a look at the map that Dana had drawn .
It contained a detailed layout of the distribution of soldiers .
It was as though he prepared this in order for the allies to strike first .

“What do you mean by this?”
“We have all of the examinees on our side . The Aman Imperial Army does not have the dark magicians and Lee Chang-wee’s group as they haven’t arrived yet . ”
“You mean we should take this opportunity to attack first . ”
“Indeed . ”

Dana nodded and continued .

“Why don’t we have Mr . Kim hold them in place through long-range sniping, and have us attack Laman City first during the meantime?”
“So you mean to utilize all the examinees here . ”
“Yes . We’ll let the enemies get distracted with the Arend Royal Army, and put the examinees in there secretly . We have a lot of examinees other than the 33 that are participating in the final battle, so this is a feasible plan . ”

Odin fell into contemplation when he heard those words .
Yes, this was definitely a possible plan . After all, they were fully aware of the inner workings of the defenses of Laman City .
If the nimble and strong examinees utilized this advantage, they should be able to deal a serious strike . ”
The problem was that… .

“It’s too burdening for Mr . Kim . ”
“I guess that’s the case, but he can shoot from more than 5 kilometers away . On top of that, elementalism is undetectable by dark magic . ”
“Hmmm . ”

Odin was also aware of the destructive power Kim Hyunho’s sniper rifle was capable of producing .
However, that didn’t mean that he was able to safely gain time against the dark magicians and Lee Chang-wee’s group single-handedly .

‘I think he’s definitely capable of it, but he will be taking a big risk . ’

He thought about it for a moment .
However, he then came to a conviction .

‘Everyone is taking risks . This cannot be helped . ’

“Very well . I shall talk to His Majesty about it . He’ll probably allow it . My opinions work well on him after all . ”

Just as Odin guaranteed, King Alsefon III started discussing attacking Laman City with the other nobles .
The discussion was about whether or not to proactively attack at this time when the enemy supply chain was in a mess .
However, the real plan was to have the examinees infiltrate the city and cause massive damage .
Meanwhile, Dana relayed this plan to Kim Hyunho who was still in the Aman Empire .

***

“I like it . ”
-Will you be okay?
“Yes . I’ll do it . I think it’s a good plan . ”
-Thanks .

After having a conversation with Dana, I spoke with Jihye .

“You heard that?”
“I did . ”
“I’ll first call Secondborn so go back to camp first . I’ll remain behind and deal with those pesky…… . ”
“I don’t want to . ”
“You don’t want to?”

I asked back in shock .
She was surprisingly firm in her opinion about this .

“I will remain behind and protect you . ”
“I appreciate your feelings, but there’s nothing for you to do here . I’ll be harassing them from long range . ”
“The dark magicians are there and we don’t know what method they will use to attack you . It will be safer for me to be with you just in case you get attacked . ”
“It’s also easier for me to move around by myself . ”
“Then call out Secondborn . I’ll guard you from a distance . ”

Damn, she only said what was right .
She simply didn’t want to lose out on this . So this was what my sister felt like when she was talking to her .

“You’ll get mistreated if you keep defying your husband like that . ”
“You are not my husband yet though?”
“Huh? Did you forget? We’re married here in Arena . ”
“I don’t care, and I’m staying . ”

Damn .
I wanted to let her go to a safe place as this was a dangerous mission, but that seemed far-fetched .
I was just about to give up and allow her to stay, but then something flashed in my mind .

“There’s a condition though . ”
“Please speak . ”
“You’ll have to comply with this if you really want to fight with me . ”
“Okay, please tell me what it is . ”
“Call me oppa . ”
“Unders……?”

She was just about to say “understood” but stopped .

“I think I just heard wrong . ”
“I just told you to call me oppa . ”
“I don’t want to . ”
“Then go back to camp . As I said just now, I cannot allow you to fight here if you don’t comply with that . ”
“Not only is there no reason to call you oppa, as I’m a year older than you, I feel this is unrelated to the battle at all . ”
“What do you mean it’s unrelated? Don’t you know that being called oppa makes every man stronger than he actually is? You don’t even understand that? I can’t fight alongside you then . Off you go, back to camp . ”
“That’s unreasonable . ”

She sounded a little frustrated .

“You can put your life on the line for me, but you can’t do such a simple thing? Aah~, I’m now doubting your feelings about me . I can’t fight feeling like this after all . Please go back . ”

I became as unreasonable as I could be, and summoned Secondborn in the process .
In the end, she spoke in a really startled voice .

“It’s too awkward for me to call you oppa as I still have my habits as a soldier . ”
“Hey, how long do you think it has been since you were discharged? You are simply lacking in your efforts for me . We are going to get married and live together, and once I come back from work, are you going to keep welcoming me with your emotionless voice like that?”
“I, I apologize . I’ll try to do better in the future . ”
“Fine, then I’ll take a step back and change the word . ”
“?”
“Call me honey . ”
“…… . !?”

Her arms around my waist suddenly became tighter .
I barely held myself back from laughing and became more shameless .

“Come on, quickly . We are going to get married soon, and you aren’t going to call me honey either? I’ll take that as a divorce . ”
“Th, that’s…… . . ”
“Go on, if you hate me, then just leave me . ”
“Okay, then . H, honey . ”
“I think I misheard that . Can you say it again?”
“You did hear it . ”
“I did not . ”

Even while I teased her, I controlled Firstborn to fly north-west .
This was the direction of the transportation troops that Lee Chang-wee guarded . In the end, I decided to take her with me .
I was in the middle of asking her to do some other, uhm, embarrassing things .
The Marble of the Abyss in my pocket started ringing and Dana’s voice came out .

-I’m very sorry to interrupt you at such a critical moment, but you’re closing in on the enemies .
“Oh, are we?”
-Yes, you’re around 30km away from them . Please prepare yourselves .
“Okay, then . ”

I pointed towards Secondborn who was flying beside Firstborn and spoke .

“Well, then, honey . Please hop onto that one . ”
“Okay . ”
“Nu-uh!”
“…… Okay, honey . ”

Hm, much better . Stiff, military speech tone used to say such a sweet word . That made it so interesting .

“Arm!”

I took out the Neilson R3 .

“Sylph, scout the area . ”
-Nyaan!

Sylph flew towards the north-east after being summoned .
There was a long line of carriages, as well as cavalry that was on high guard that surrounded it . There were also Lee Chang-wee and the others that camouflaged themselves as ordinary soldiers .
The soldiers with black hair and Asian-tone skin were almost all Chinese examinees .

‘Return, Sylph . ’

I aimed at one of the Chinese examinees through the scope .
Sylph adjusted my aim when it returned .
I didn’t summon Kasa just yet, as a lump of fire in the sky may get detected, even from afar .

‘Let’s do this!’

I killed the sound with Sylph and fired the first round .

Whoooosh!

A 20mm round whizzed through the air and struck the head of a Chinese examinee suspect .
As the power behind the anti-material rifle was so great, his head literally exploded .
Thanks to that, the soldiers and horses nearby all went into a panic .
I continued and pulled the trigger against another target . Sylph automatically adjusted the aim to the black-haired soldiers that were suspected to be corrupt examinees .

Fwoosh plop!

This time, the chest was pulverized and blood spurted out from where the heart once was .
But then, one man abruptly jumped out from the crowd and started dashing towards me .

It was Lee Chang-wee .
He left his horse and started running towards me at incredible speeds as he was using aura to support it .

“Lee Chang-wee’s approaching! We’ll retreat now . ”
“Shoot the wheel of the frontmost carriage!”

Jihye quickly spoke up .

‘Oh!’

Only then did I realize that that was a good method to delay their procession and pulled the trigger on the rifle .

Fwoooosh booom!

Sylph gave the bullet an additional spin, and with my bullet adjustment skill on top of that, that single bullet single-handedly destroyed half of the carriage that was at the very front .
After that, I ran away without any regrets before Lee Chang-wee approached . Jihye also followed me from behind .

-The Eyes of the Abyss will be tracking you .

Dana suddenly warned .
Oh yeah, there was no way the dark magicians were letting this go .
Just as Dana had pointed that out, I shouted to Sylph .

“Sylph, destroy all of the Eyes of the Abyss that follow us!”
-Nyaan!

Sylph threw some wind blades as soon as I said that .
The blades of wind that Sylph had cast continuously struck something down from the air .
Dana was very correct .
Like that, we were able to distance ourselves from them and even shook off the tracking from the dark magicians .