Stereotypes About Mages

After taking out one target, the Teutonic Order pressed its attack even harder.

After that, it lost four Armored Knights and nearly half its Knight Squires before finally destroying every enemy Knight Squire and toppling another Garter Knight.

Through his binoculars, Morin watched three Teutonic Knights surround the fallen Armored Knight. With maces and battle axes gleaming with some kind of magical light, they smashed its limbs and front armor again and again...

This was combat between Armored Knights: a fight to the death with no quarter given.

Now only two Armored Knights of the Order of the Garter remained, struggling to hold on.

They fought as they fell back, clearly intent on retreating, and began pushing toward a weak point in the encirclement.

But Ludwig had the upper hand. He had no intention of letting this chance to wipe them out slip away, and charged in with his weapon swinging.

The other Armored Knights saw him move and pursued their advantage, determined to keep the last two prey from escaping.

Just as the Teutonic Order was about to claim a decisive victory in this "hunt," a figure in mage robes came hurtling through the air from the distance.

The figure stopped abruptly above the battlefield in defiance of physics and looked down over everything below.

At the sight, a powerful sense of foreboding rose in Morin.

Then the system sounded a prompt, this time a jarring alarm.

[Holy Britannian Empire Highland Mage Corps: High Instructor—Eldridge]

It was the Highland Mage Morin had nearly locked eyes with during his forward reconnaissance!

Morin knew there was only one reason for him to appear now: he had come to support the Order of the Garter's Armored Knights.

As Morin wondered what the mysterious Highland Mage intended to do, Eldridge slowly raised both hands and pressed them downward, chanting an arcane incantation.

Then he pointed from afar at the ground beneath the pursuing Teutonic Knights.

[5th-Circle Spell—Transmute Rock]

In an instant, everything changed!

The solid, scorched earth beneath the Teutonic Knights seemed to turn into a flowing swamp.

A vast stretch of ground rapidly softened and liquefied, becoming a mire that had no business being there.

The Armored Knights, each weighing more than ten tons in combat, and the Knight Squires in power armor lost their balance. Their heavy bodies sank uncontrollably into the mire.

"Damn it!"

Ludwig roared inside his cockpit. He fought desperately to maneuver his machine free, but its internal combustion engine's frantic roar only drove it deeper.

In mere seconds, the situation on the battlefield had completely reversed.

The two surviving Armored Knights of the Order of the Garter hesitated at first, but when Eldridge pointed toward Seville, they turned without hesitation and quickly left the area.

Morin stared at the godlike figure in the sky, overcome by the helpless feeling of having idealism beat the hell out of him.

So this was what a high-level spellcaster in this world could do?

With a wave of his hand, he could reshape the terrain and turn the tide of a local battle...

And with Armored Knights in the mix, what the hell were miserable infantry supposed to do? Just fill the line and die?

Morin's mind raced, and a thought flashed through it.

No! We can't let him keep casting!

He knew how important the Teutonic Order's Armored Knights were to the Saxon infantry. If they were all lost here, the infantry would be in for a brutal time.

Morin glanced at the marker on the System Map. Beside the mage's special unit icon was another line of information and a shield symbol.

[Status: Sustained casting, interruptible]

[Mage Armor—Current Durability: 100%]

"That's more like it. There had to be a weakness somewhere. How else are we supposed to fight him...?"

"Mages have had it easy for too long. Floating out in the open above a battlefield to cast spells... Just how afraid of mages were infantry before this?"

The information gave Morin confidence. If a mage's casting couldn't be interrupted, that would be far too overpowered.

"Third Platoon! All of you! Target that mage in the sky! Fire! Fire at will!"

The soldiers of Third Platoon lying on the high ground froze for a moment, then quickly reacted. From prone positions, they aimed at the figure more than three hundred meters overhead.

Bang!

Morin fired first, and dozens of Gew.98 rifles spat fire at once.

The dense crackle of gunfire shattered the brief silence on the high ground.

Morin's action was like a spark to a fuse.

The International Brigades soldiers beside him quickly caught on.

Everyone understood they could not let the mage wipe out their Armored Knights. At their bearded commander's order, they raised their rifles and fired.

Then Major Thomas, commander of the 1st Battalion, and the other officers, including Captain Hauser, reacted as well. All three hundred-plus surviving combat troops of the 1st Battalion aimed their rifles skyward.

Hundreds of rifles poured fire toward Eldridge.

At more than three hundred meters, a human-sized target was challenging to hit with iron sights, so the hit rate suffered.

But sheer volume made the difference. Under such a dense barrage, a substantial number of bullets struck their target.

A transparent shield around Eldridge rippled constantly: the effect of his [Mage Armor].

He had wanted to maintain the spell and bury those damned Teutonic Knights, securing a tactical victory he could turn into a broader advantage.

But the relentless hits from 7.92 mm full-power rounds left more and more cracks in his shield.

Eldridge's expression darkened. [Mage Armor] was not invincible; at its core, it was only a first-circle spell.

Cast by someone of his level, its defensive threshold was far higher than that of a lower-ranked mage, but it still had a limit.

Back when he was an apprentice studying at the Scottish Mage Tower, he had heard the old mages warn their class:

"Though we can deal with ordinary soldiers easily, never try to face firearms with your bare body. And don't think a protective spell makes you completely immune to gunfire."

The most famous example was the tragedy of a Highland Archmage who, more than twenty years ago, had faced enemy cannon fire with [Mage Armor] and been blown to pieces along with his shield...

But in the colonial battles Eldridge had supported before, ordinary soldiers usually lost their nerve and fled the moment he appeared on the battlefield, let alone attacked him.

Today, the Saxon soldiers' gunfire shattered that expectation.

He had never imagined these ordinary foot soldiers, no more than ants in his eyes, could threaten him like this.

At last, a moment before his shield collapsed, he had no choice but to abandon the sustained spell and begin dodging in midair.

The mud on the ground quickly solidified again, but the Teutonic Knights had already sunk halfway into it and could not move.

Eldridge glared viciously at the infantry still firing below. He was about to use another spell he had prepared to make those ants regret shooting at him.

But a white signal flare rose over Seville behind him, stopping him cold.

It was the signal for the allied forces to retreat...

"Useless fools!"

Eldridge cursed, cast another [Shield] in front of himself, then flew toward Seville without looking back.