Chapter 220: Chapter 220 - Chatting Over Corpses
PoV: Nakata
"Is it just me, or did those guys get stronger?"
In the middle of the battlefield, three soldiers were talking among themselves, surrounded by the bodies of the dead.
"I’m quite sure they did, Jonas. Gladly, we also got stronger, and at a faster rate. But something is fishy about it. Did that happen before, Urraca?"
The third person shook her head as she searched the bodies of the dragonkin that littered the ground.
"No. I mean, there are some soldiers stronger than others, normal fluctuations in any war. But such a big step up is unheard of. Also, it was not one battalion, but all across the board."
The one who asked the question, Yumegami Nakata, paused her own search to ponder.
"One battalion or corps could be a case of special training or something like that. But you’re right, even the ones who look like conscripts were stronger. They weren’t more skilled, tho. Only stronger."
They kept searching and appraising, as their army watched, confused, in the distance.
"Well, whatever the cause is, it doesn’t seem to be strengthening artifacts. None of them is carrying any object imbued with magical power."
Urraca looked up to Jonas, the Hero of Calem, and agreed to his words.
"Indeed. Unless it’s an artifact capable of strengthening all troops."
The memories of a certain battle flooded back to her memory. Even though she didn’t know at the time, she later learned from her intelligence network that the Wesgothian troops were strengthened by one single mage.
"That would be one hella artifact. Do you think that something like that would even be possible?"
"Not from my knowledge, no. But I’ve experienced too many impossible things lately. So I’m not up to just throwing a hypothesis off just because of that, Jonas."
Nakata already knew about what experiences those were, as she had heard the stories of that battle several times, as well as read the reports on the several insane things that Wesgoth has been pulling off lately.
So she approached Urraca and embraced her from behind.
"Don’t worry. Whatever it is, the three of us will handle it."
"Nakata. Release, now."
"Heyy... I just wanted to lift your spirits a bit."
"By making me look like a fool in front of my troops?"
Nakata pulled away, pouting, and got back to appraising every object she could find in the bodies of the dragonkin. An utterly gruesome task.
"Maybe they drank something before the battle."
Jonas remembered the comics he loved to read when he was a small kid, about a village of Celts who kept resisting against the Roman Empire and their potions.
"That’s a possibility. If it’s an artifact capable of strengthening all of them, there’s the problem of how they would flee with it after the battle without us noticing. But if it’s something they drink beforehand..."
Nakata quickly supported the hypothesis. It seemed to be more plausible than the other. And even Urraca had to agree with that one.
"Yeah, that’s a sound possibility. And one we can’t test right now. We would need to appraise one who is still alive so we can check his status effects."
Normally, Creature Analysis wouldn’t be able to reveal the status effects of another living being who is sentient. But both heroes were able to do it. That’s just another of the common-sense-shattering things Urraca has been experiencing.
Though, to be honest, this was just a misunderstanding. Creature Analysis is able to do that normally.
The only problem is that you need to have the skill within at least a certain level, and even then the stats of both the one appraising and the one being appraised would affect the results.
The thing is that most humans never bother to raise that skill, thinking it’s useless. Nor were they able to have their base stats at the required level as well.
But the heroes, because of some perceptions about game systems from Earth, did exactly that. And the Hero title also made their base stats much higher than normal humans.
So it wasn’t about Creature Analysis behaving abnormally, but just people who never bothered to look up how stuff works misunderstanding things. A tale as old as time itself.
"So, what do we do now? We stopped their advance here because the three of us were in Barca when they broke through. But this doesn’t look like their main army."
As Nakata put it, they were in Barca, the biggest city of the western region of Calem, until three hours ago. It was a meeting to discuss the reports of the increase in strength of the beastkin troops.
The breakthrough, in which one of the draconic battalions managed to advance beyond the front, happened near that city. That’s why the three of them went together to fight in the same battle.
With two heroes in the field, the battle ended up pretty one-sided. And that’s why there were practically only the bodies of dead dragonkin on the ground.
"Well, this battle didn’t give us enough data. We need to get them alive, or before they are battle ready."
"What about an incursion beyond their lines, then?"
"I’m game."
Urraca looked awed at the faces of the two heroes. Both Nakata, who made the insane proposal, and Jonas, who accepted it.
Any human caught in dragonkin territory would be killed immediately. That’s the only reason their countries never managed to establish a spy network in enemy territory.
An ’incursion’ was not something anyone would be able to pull off. That’s what she wanted to say.
But she knew those two well. Both their prowess and their stubbornness.
Even though it’s been only six months since their arrival in this world, they are already as strong as a small army. The quantity of victories that humanity was able to get because of their diligence is beyond counting.
But still, going into dragonkin territory... that would be just too much. Even for the two of them.
"No. Don’t even think about it. You’re not going into their territory. That’s out of the question."
"Huh? Why?"
Nakata wasn’t used to having her proposal denied right off the bat. In fact, she had never seen Urraca react like that to her before. It’s no wonder she got confused.
"Because it’s insane. Listen, we can’t go there, period. Every time we sent someone behind their lines, we never heard from them again. Not just in my life, but ever. Centuries and centuries. You pass the line, you’re as good as dead."
"Why? I think we’re strong enough. Like..."
She makes a gesture towards the army of corpses, an argument that says more than a thousand words could convey.
"I don’t know why. Nobody knows why. We’ve sent really strong people before... and sometimes we could even witness their deaths from a tower or a wall. It is simply not possible."
Jonas and Nakata were simply staring at Urraca’s face as she tried to explain. Both had expressions like someone who was staring at a math problem from three grades above their own.
"So, if an army makes a breakthrough like this one did..."
"It will have the same fate this one had. That’s why, in this war, the armies advance in lines."
Nakata is the first to present a hypothesis as she tried to grapple with the meaning of all that.
"Would it be related to the System? Like, the System only works where the goddess reaches and then stops once you enter dragonkin territory?"
"That sounds like a good theory. I was wondering myself why the goddess herself doesn’t just destroy them. Maybe her power just can’t reach."
Jonas was nodding along with Nakata’s explanation, while Urraca kept her silence. She was looking like a person who just had an epiphany.
"Eh... Urraca?"
"Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, it could be that. I had never thought about it in that light, but it makes sense. I just had been thinking of the goddess as absolute and omnipotent all my life, until very recently."
The princess recovered quickly and shared her thoughts, to which Nakata smiled and nodded.
"Yeah. It’s hard to break the molds within which our brain has been wired since childhood. Still, I wish there was a way to test that hypothesis. Like going there just enough to see if there’s a cut in power or something."
"You are not doing it. Period. But I will look for a voluntary in the army."
A voluntary would be especially hard, because the mission was basically committing suicide for a few scraps of information. And Urraca was well aware of it.
But she was also aware that ’searching for a voluntary’ was a good method for stalling. It provided an excuse to postpone any action from the Hero.
And the current situation, in which dragonkin soldiers seemed to be weirdly stronger than usual, only made the mission even riskier.
But at the same time, she agreed that they were starving for information. They needed to know more about what’s happening if they had any hope of winning the war.