Chapter 285 – Runes vs Spells.

“It’s trying to destroy the magical cannons, don’t let it finish that spell!”

A rain of arrows descended at a black-looking skeleton that was in the process of casting some type of spell. Before they could collide with it a large group of white skeletons appeared before it. Acting as a bone shield they deflected the projectiles even suffering destruction after their cores were either pierced or splashed with holy water.

The initial salvo managed to get the magic monster out of casting the spell but it soon resumed the same stance and continued. This time around however, a large skeletal monster with wings appeared to swat those arrows away. Its bones were tougher and it could generate a strong wind that altered the arrow’s trajectory. This allowed the other monster to finish the silent chant and send a ball of flames toward the city walls.

This collision rattled the city defenses but didn’t manage to blast through the gate as it was intended. As the red flames subsided a thin blue glow could be seen on these walls. The skeleton halted the next spell to look for the reason for its blast not being able to blow a hole in the feeble walls. The mana sense it was equipped with made it focus on strange objects stuck in the wall that began vanishing after its spell collided with the wall.

“The mana wards are working but they won’t last forever, resume the defensive and don’t let those monsters through the walls!”

Arthur Valerian looked at Sir Gareth, one of his knights, who was giving orders to the soldiers. The guard captain was next to him but was still an inexperienced soldier that needed to learn proper ways of directing his troops. Instead, the knight took over as he had actually gone through proper classes at a knight academy.

The city wall had been under attack for a while now but it had not fallen. Bringing the magical turrets to this place worked wonders as they were quite good at suppressing the monster’s suicide charges. They weren’t the only magical means of defending that they had.

Usually, only large cities or forts were able to augment their walls with magical shields. In a world, with monsters like that skeletal mage it was a necessity as only magic could go against magic. The walls wouldn’t last through many of those fire blasts and even with the magical shielding through various runic talismans and other implements wouldn’t last forever.

It was a patchwork of various items that were capable of producing shields. The best kind was something that their city Runesmith came up with. The runic parchment would be attached to a flat surface, then whenever this area was attacked by something it would activate a short-lasting shield. It was a one-off defensive measure that needed to be replaced but also wouldn’t be wasted until an attack occurred and didn’t need anyone to activate it.

Even now this city lacked a proper mage which were also rare among adventurer types. Usually, people of this class attended magical academies to make use of their high intelligence stat. It allowed them to breeze through classes that would give anyone else a headache. Thanks to this they were always sought after for employment in various fields. They didn’t really need to put themselves in danger as the regular adventurers.

When they decided to join up with a party, they were fought after by the other adventurers. Even Roland when he was younger was able to join up with one even though his level was low compared to others. People were willing to invest in a mage as having a portable magical turret around made defeating monsters a lot easier.

Then there was a second reason so few mages decided on that type of lifestyle. It was viewed as something barbaric and not as something a magical scholar should work towards. A lot of mages thought themselves to be better than the common man, they were the seekers of truth and magic was a tool to progress this world further. Most innovation was driven by magical research that was supposed to enlighten all the races towards the next step.

What Albrook was left with were magical items and weapons that were far more common. The ones that were able to fire off magical projectiles were all gathered here. The defensive bombardment with the arrows was finite thus after a few salvos the magical items came into play. Various mana arrows with different elements flew toward the white skeletons to hold them off from reaching the wall. It was a supportive measure to act together with the turrets that were working for the time being.

“Can we do something about those black ones?”

Arthur turned towards Mary while looking out to the battlefield. There he saw the black mage preparing another spell, only thanks to the ranged attacks were they able to hold that thing back from damaging their walls. Ordering his men to engage in combat before the walls were destroyed wasn’t something that he was willing to do yet. Walls and magical items could be replaced but the troops that he was bringing up couldn’t.

“We have assembled a couple of gold rank adventurer teams but we might not be able to isolate them from the white ones.”

“… Hm… carry on, for now, perhaps an opportunity will present itself to us.”

They were clearly outnumbered but had the advantage as the walls weren’t breached yet. For the time being it was a stalemate but sooner or later they would run out of mana wards and the magical items would lose their charge. The turrets were still prone to overheating and if they didn’t get to that mage then a breach would happen.

“Lord Arthur, we might have a problem!”

“What’s wrong?”

“The winged black skeleton… it’s trying to get behind the gates!”

Just as he was getting comfortable with the defensive a problem arose. The large gargoyle-looking undead monster that was previously using his wings to protect the mage from getting hit by arrows started moving.

“The mage used some sort of protection spell.”
“Are they changing their tactics?”

This was somewhat surprising, monsters like these didn’t really have that much intelligence or strategic capabilities. They could follow basic movements or emulate human creatures to attack them. Normally they would stick to one tactic throughout the whole siege and for that they were mostly prepared for. They were using the fact that the creature capable of flying would stick around the mage just as it did down in the dungeon.

Instead, the two split off from each other leaving the mage alone. The arrows that had blessed water attached to it didn’t seem to be able to get through this ominous-looking shielding and this wasn’t the end of it. There were three black skeletons, one looking like some kind of beast that walked on four legs. Previously all three of those monsters were sticking together and letting the white skeletons attack but now all of them moved simultaneously.

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The mage took care of the arrow rain while the flying monster moved out of the range of the arrows and magical spells. It shot through the air and headed towards the main gate while keeping its distance. Then the largest one of them, the one that looked like a beast charged forward in the same direction.

“The arrows won’t be able to reach the monster and if we turn the magic weapons away from the battlefield that other monster…”

Arthur moved to the edge of the wall to look at what was happening. In the distance, he could hear his knight shouting to change the target to the flying monster. If they could get it down before the monsters approached then it would be fine but it seemed that the enemy was convinced otherwise. It looked to be a diversion tactic to allow the beast-like monster to get to the gate or to lessen the assault on the mage.

The beast type was large and was also a tier 3. This put it above tier 2 class holders but this didn’t mean that it would be able to last through all the low-tier magical attacks. From Arthur’s standpoint, the tactic was easy to see through. If they focused on the gargoyle above then the mage and the beast type could become a problem.

The caster would be able to resume casting while the other tried to maul the entrance gate. On the other hand, if they focused on the mage and beast-type then the gargoyle would get over the gate. Whoever was directing the monsters was convinced that one way or the other the monsters would get through the gate. Either from inside or from outside with the city defenders not having enough firepower to stop them, at least without directly engaging them in combat.