F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 192: Pact with Arial
"Faye, another wounded over here!" I say quickly to Faye as I lay a wounded soldier on a cloth inside a tent; he’s convulsing and groaning in pain. Faye comes running over to me.
"I-I’ll heal him, Lyn!" Faye says, beginning to use her healing magic on the soldier’s sword cut. I look at my clothes and hands—they’re completely stained with blood from all the soldiers I’ve had to help.
’Things look bad...’ I felt Lucien using a domain a while ago, and then I saw a devastating light attack near the [Bridge], so things are undoubtedly more serious than we thought.
"..." Soon, the soldiers under my command bring more wounded men. I go over to them, assessing the soldiers’ conditions.
"Toss those ten over there in that corner," I tell my soldiers as they look at a pile of dead bodies.
"B-But they’re still alive."
"They won’t survive those wounds. There’s no point wasting...resources on it." I feel terrible saying it, but the injury on the soldiers I ordered tossed with the dead is too severe. Faye can’t heal that; besides, some of them are dying right now.
"Understood..." The soldiers obey as I approach a soldier with a nasty laceration on his arm. I grab the bandages and start wrapping it, pouring alcohol on the wound.
"Soldier, what’s the situation? Are we losing or winning?" I ask the soldier, finishing the bandaging.
"General Evelyn, we’re...in a really bad spot. General Lucien and General Laplace are out of action, leaving everything to the sub-generals who can’t handle commanding so many." He delivers terrible news.
’This is bad...’ I pull dozens of rings from my pockets, all relics I’ve been making in my spare time.
"Give these to some soldiers to use on the battlefield. They’re relics with weak magic, but they’re good for distractions." I toss the rings to him and run over to the corpses. The situation is too frantic.
’Eve, Syl’Vyr, how are the surroundings?’ I ask the two, hoping they’ll say there are no angels.
[It’s bad, Evelyn-sama. Some angels are trying to reach this area to stop us from treating the wounded. Syl’Vyr and I are managing for now, but we won’t be able to come help you...] As she speaks through my mind, I hear a loud noise.
I look toward where Eve must be and see a huge electrical discharge, making it clear she’s fighting there.
’Need help?’ I ask nervously, worried she might get too hurt.
[That would be great, Evelyn-chan! I could use some help here!] Syl’Vyr says.
"..." I look at the huge pile of corpses. Creating a bunch of standard puppets would be great, but I think about what’s most worthwhile and decide to try something I’ve never done before.
I touch the pile of corpses and begin transforming all of them into a single puppet—a sacrificial puppet.
[Sacrificial Puppet] A puppet that can take any form. Its only function is to attack until it’s spent, and when completely exhausted, it will self-destruct, taking enemies with it.
"AUUUUUUUHHHH!" The puppet assumes the form of a massive wolf, howling at the sky the moment it’s born. I made a wolf because I remember perfectly the anatomy of the first wolf I dismantled.
"Go help Syl’Vyr." I send the wolf after Syl’Vyr and not Eve, because Syl’Vyr, as a mage, relies more on this kind of help. And once the wolf finishes helping Syl’Vyr, she’ll be able to go help Eve, which is better.
’Hundreds of corpses to create a single wolf puppet... I hope it’s strong.’ I don’t know its strength, only that it’s a puppet that will attack our enemies and then destroy itself after a while.
"..." I wipe the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, feeling exhausted. Even though the war only started about two hours ago, I’ve been running back and forth nonstop, treating the wounded while creating puppets.
I’ve already made over 200 standard puppets, and now I’ve created this super wolf puppet to help Syl’Vyr. It’s natural I’m drained, since I was never a very energetic person to begin with.
"..." I look at the sky. I can feel Lucien’s magic floating up there. The domain isn’t visible, but I know it’s there.
"Bad news!! Bad news!!" A soldier comes running, shouting, until he sees me and heads my way.
"You’re also a General here, right?" he asks, and I see how out of breath and blood-covered he is.
"Y-Yes, I am..."
"Laplace-sama is losing!! And all the soldiers Laplace-sama took with her have been killed!!" When he says that, I’m shocked. Laplace had 30,000 soldiers, and they’re all dead? And she’s still losing?
’This is bad! If there’s an angel capable of that, it’s either an extremely strong general or a member of the angels’ Royal Guard. Plus, considering Laplace’s blessing ability, her losing is even harder to believe.’
"Okay..." I say in a cold tone, accepting the news while thinking what to do. Esther’s book doesn’t have advice for this sort of thing, leaving me to make a decision alone.
’I can’t order a retreat—no one would obey me... What to do...’ I look at my hands until I see the relic that is Arial. She said she could help me if I asked for help, in exchange for things from me.
’Arial could help. She’s a nymph and has great power... but the price...’ I look at the sky. The angels clearly have the upper hand and are putting too much pressure on the demons, who are without their two most capable generals.
’The best move would be to reunite Lucien and Laplace and make a brief strategic withdrawal, which would force the angels to also retreat and pause the confrontation for a few hours...’ I rub my hand, thinking whether I should ask Arial for help and what kind of help.
"...Faye, take care of the wounded in my place. I have to do something." I run into an empty tent and close the entrance, then start pacing in circles, thinking it over.
’What can I give Arial that would make her help?’ I look at the ring, my anxiety growing with each second, until an idea comes to me.
"Arial!! I need your help... p-please answer me! I have something to offer!!" I speak to the ring, but there’s no response.
"I-I can build you a body in the future! It’s impossible right now, but if in the future I have the materials and you want a physical body, I can build one for you to possess!!" It’s a tempting proposal, and I know it. For a spiritual being like a nymph, a physical body is like a second life.
"..."
[What do you need?] I hear her voice, and with that, I know she’s accepted. Since it’s a future agreement, I won’t have to do anything for now, and giving her a body in the future shouldn’t be too big a problem.
"Destroy Lucien’s domain. You don’t need to fight, you don’t need to kill, just break Lucien’s domain and make him return to the battlefield!!" If Lucien returns, everything will stabilize again, because he’ll be able to resume giving orders. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
[...Alright. Point your hand directly toward the location of his domain.] She speaks confidently, and I knew she could do it. Because spiritual beings like nymphs can more skillfully affect the way magic interacts with the world, able to invade and break domains that aren’t physically in the world.
"..." I quickly go outside the tent and point my hand at the sky, aiming precisely at the massive concentration of magic floating motionless at one point.
I see my veins begin to glow a vibrant blue, while my hand with the ring turns completely crystalline blue. It’s incredibly strange, but I can feel the immense amount of water magic. All the soldiers look at me, sensing the enormous mass of magic being released.
They seem to think it’s coming from me, and I don’t plan to correct that assumption. After all, technically it is coming from me—it’s just not my power.
"..." Soon, something is fired from my hand—like a huge azure beam made entirely of magic, taking the form of a massive dragon that swallows and bites at the magical concentration of the domain.
’Is that a soul attack?’ My body trembles with fear. Soul attacks are one of my greatest weaknesses, one of the few types of attacks that can kill me and prevent me from moving to other puppet bodies.
"Oh..." A great sound of shattering glass spreads, and numerous dead angelic and demonic soldiers plummet from the sky as I see Lucien and an Angel appear from within the domain.
Lucien looks directly at me, shocked, realizing I broke his domain. The angel with him also looks directly at me in shock, but Lucien, a skilled warrior, seizes the opening and pierces the angel’s throat, twisting his sword—which turns into a flail—decapitating the angel, who plummets from the sky.
Quickly, Lucien flies over to me as the soldiers shift their formation. It seems he gave them some order. When he reaches me, stopping right in front of me, I fall silent. My hand returns to its normal color in seconds, as if nothing happened.
"I don’t know what you did. I don’t know how you broke my domain... but you did well. I can see the situation has turned ugly. Where’s Laplace?" he asks, clearly irritated but more focused on the war.
"She’s cornered. A soldier said all 30,000 soldiers under her command are dead, and she’s currently losing a fight—probably against an Elite General of the angels, or a direct member of the Royal Guard!" I say rapidly.
"..."
"Great..." He starts flying, shooting back toward the battlefield, while I collapse to my knees from exhaustion, my heart pounding wildly.
"Haa..." We’ll probably have to retreat, as I’d thought. The angels will also have to retreat and pause the war, once Lucien helps Laplace.
