I nearly broke down in tears when the lights of the Imperial camp came into view right in front of me. I mean, why me? There were thousands of people(most of them normal soldiers) who were way better(?) than me. Why did it have to be me standing here?

  However, I couldn’t cry because behind me, 100 troops stood ready, weapons in hand. At least they were trained properly. Most of them were veterans who had finished their training before the war even began. That much was reassuring.

  That was where the good news ended.

  The entire mage division, the one force I was actually excited about, had been sent to the rear. Cedric’s words echoed in my head “unsuited for this kind of operation,” and, more importantly, “certainly not under the command of a girl with no military experience.”

  While it was heartbreaking(?) it was also true. I had no real military experience and no idea how to lead an army. Instructor Demo hadn’t taught me any of that.

  “You’ll take command. Understood?” I said to the highest-ranking soldier, Sergeant Major Elion. “I don’t have the talent or experience to lead a unit. Adjust the orders as the situation demands.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Elion saluted and drew his sword.

  Being called ma’am still felt strange, but I didn’t dwell on it. There was no time for that. The operation, Operation Iron Thrust, was about to begin. As if a god was watching me, the exact moment later, a single flare lit up the far rear of the Imperial Camp. Another artifact, judging by the unnatural glow.

  I drew my sword. It was nothing special, just an ordinary iron blade, and stepped to the front of the formation.

  “CHARGE!”

  I ran forward with everything I had. Behind me, the soldiers roared their war cries and surged ahead as one. The ground trembled beneath our charge.

  We soon reached the Imperial Camp, but contrary to my expectations, no force was waiting for us to meet outside. Instead, all I saw was a drunken guard, hiccuping while swaying unsteadily with an empty bottle clutched in his hand.

  “Huh…”

  Even from this distance, my enhanced senses picked up his slurred voice. “Ar… hic… havin’ a… a… pa-rade…?”

  I didn’t slow down, let alone stop to correct him. Instead, I kept charging forward, gripping my sword tightly and aiming straight ahead.

  “Hic… knew it was a g-g-good ide—”

  My blade cut him off mid-sentence, and his body collapsed with a heavy clank against the ground.

  Strangely enough, I felt nothing as it happened. It felt no different than crushing an insect aside. Maybe my heart had already changed because I wasn’t a human anymore, or maybe this body was simply built to accept killing.

  However, there was no time to dwell on it.. I kept moving, pulling a small needle from my pouch.

  “We only have a hundred of them.” Cedric’s warning echoed in my mind as he had handed me ten. “Be careful. The sea routes are blocked by monsters, and we don’t have the craftsmanship for advanced artifacts.”

  I hurled the needle toward one of the larger tents, and after it pierced through the fabric with a faint whistle, flames erupted almost immediately, followed by panicked shouts from inside.

  “Start throwing oil around the fire,” I ordered the nearby soldiers as they clashed with the drunken soldiers. “Keep it spreading.”

  With that done, I moved straight toward the burning section of the camp where Imperial soldiers stumbled about in panic, their desperate cries filling the air.

  “HEEELPPPP!”

  “Water! Someone bring water!”

  “MOMMY—!”

  I ignored them, weaving through the chaos as I advanced, striking without hesitation, making sure not to slow myself down as bodies fell behind me. It was the fastest way to clear a path without risking my blade getting caught, and I had no intention of stopping in the middle of this mess.

  One particularly large man staggered out of a tent, the flames around him already dying down as he steadied himself with a morning star in hand.

  “What the hell is going on?!” he bellowed, before his eyes locked onto me. “You! Enemies! Sound the al—”

  I dashed forward before he could finish. He swung the weapon at me in a wide arc, the spiked iron ball cutting through the air. Instead of blocking it head-on, I rolled aside and caught the chain connecting it, my smaller frame slipping past the worst of its momentum.

  “YOU LITTLE—”

  He tried to pull it back, but I yanked first. My super strength caught him off balance, dragging him forward just long enough for me to close the distance and stab into his heart. He collapsed heavily, and I twisted free before he could fall on top of me.

  “Tch… disgusting.”

  I wiped my face and looked ahead, where more soldiers were emerging from their tents, some barely awake, others half-drunk, all of them raising their weapons with unsteady hands.

  “Wh-what the hell is happening?” one of them muttered.

  I brushed the blood from my blade and stepped forward.

  “Death,” I replied simply, before charging again.

  From there, everything blurred together. I moved without stopping, letting instinct and training guide my body as I cut through the camp, striking, evading, and pressing forward again and again until the screams, the fire, and the confusion all blended into a single haze.

  Compared to the training I endured under Instructor Demo, this was nothing. They were too slow, too careless, too weak to even register as proper opponents. Whenever one of them lunged, I slipped past it, countered, and moved on immediately, never lingering long enough for the next one to recover their nerve.

  “Who in the goddess’s name is this monster?”

  “STOP HER!”

  “HELP!”

  I began to feel a tug at the corner of my mouth as I smiled, my eyes wide, as I continued to cut down every human in sight. There were so, so, so, so many of them… it almost felt like my birthday. Right?

  I continued to slash, stab, thrust, running, spinning, until I couldn't tell what was human, tent, fire, sky or ground anymore. All I knew was that I needed to kill all the humans.

  "...ficer Aria…"

  I needed to kill all the humans. But why? Why did I need to kill all the huma—

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  "Warrant Officer Aria!"

  I blinked as the world around me came back into focus. I looked around. There were countless bodies sprawled lifeless around me. In the distance, I could hear horns blowing as thunderous footsteps drew closer.

  "W-what?" I slurred, staring at Elion. He was staring back, but I could see the horror in his eyes.

  "I'm sorry to disrupt," Elion said carefully, "but the Imperials are surrounding us. We need to decide: break through their weakest point to escape, or push deeper into their center."

  I clutched my head, trying to quiet the loud ringing as I thought.

  "And what would be our best action?" I managed to ask.

  Elion grimaced. "The best action is to push to the center as a distraction while General Cedric attacks the rear."

  I picked up a spear and a small bow, slinging the arrows across my back. I checked my fire needles. Only three left. That explained all the fires around me.

  Readying to charge once more, I raised my spear, but Elion stopped me.

  "Ma'am, perhaps it's best if we charge together."

  I wanted to say “you'll just slow me down,” since they were clearly weaker than me. But the real reason was, when I was fighting, I couldn't tell allies from enemies and might end up killing them.

  "We won't get in your way, Ma'am," Elion added, reading my conflicted expression. "We'll just watch your back and handle any soldiers who get through."

  "Thank you." I nodded and started spinning the spear, building momentum. Then I once charged again toward the enemy center again, my allies following close behind.

  The next thing I knew, hundreds of enemies were charging at me. The sounds around me faded. Instead, everything sharpened. I could see every Imperial soldier rushing toward me.

  Without stopping, I hurled the spear straight into the mass of soldiers wildly swinging their swords.

  "Wha—"

  Before the front soldier could finish, the spear pierced his heart. But it didn't stop there. It tore through soldier after soldier, arms, legs, torsos, until it finally embedded itself in a large tent behind them.

  The tent burst into flames and exploded.

  "Another needle gone." I took a deep breath and pulled out one more fire needle, wrapping it around an arrow before tucking it back. I drew a regular arrow but didn't nock it. Instead, I charged.

  An Imperial soldier tried to block me, but he was too late. I leaped impossibly high, soaring above their shocked faces. When I landed, my feet planted squarely on his face as I drove the arrow through his neck.

  His body crumpled. I yanked the arrow free and this time nocked it, shooting a soldier taking aim at me with a bow. Without pausing, I kicked the corpse aside and retrieved the arrow, but the tip had broken off.

  "DIE!"

  I snapped the wooden shaft in half with my bare hands and stabbed it into the other screaming soldier's throat, silencing him forever. I discarded the ruined shaft and drew a fresh arrow.

  "You have an unusual fighting style," Elion commented, cutting down an Imperial soldier beside me. "We've lost 7 men. 12 wounded."

  I grimaced and nodded, then held out my hand. "Give me a bottle of oil."

  Elion quickly reached into his pack and produced a large bottle. I grabbed it before throwing it at the group of soldiers charging at us. They tried to block it by swinging their weapons at it, but it only spread the oil as it broke.

  “Is this oil?!” One of the soldiers cried out as he saw what it was. “Quick! Get it off before we catch fir-”

  “And boom!”

  I shot the arrow with the needle containing it as it burst into flames, with the large portion of their army screaming in help as I shot them down with my arrows.

  “This one’s gone too.” I sighed after realizing I had used up the last arrow.

  “We’ve almost reached the cent—”

  Something suddenly zoomed toward Elion.

  I noticed it, stepped forward, and grabbed an iron shield just in time. A fireball slammed into it, detonating on impact.

  I bared my teeth as I was blown backward, crashing into a tent and flattening a few Imperials along the way. The arm holding the shield snapped, scorched black with burn marks, which was already healing. My back hurt too, but nothing my regeneration couldn’t deal with.

  “The monster is gone!”

  The shout came from the direction the fireball had flown from. I turned and saw several figures in robes, staffs raised. A bunch of Imperial soldiers stood in front of them with their shield up, but cheering.

  Mages. Of all people. At least 4th Order, judging by the firepower.

  “Well of course the monster is gone.” The mage at the front, a heavily bearded man, though still not quite Instructor Demo, smugly stroked his beard. “Magic is the highes—”

  I picked up a spear and hurled it. A mage beside him threw up a barrier just in time. The spear bounced off and clattered to the ground.

  “Y-you!” the bearded mage shouted, eyes wide. “How are you still alive after taking my Snipe Spell head-on?!”

  “Well,” I said, stepping forward, “I was built for this.”

  Quite literally. I was a homunculus made for war. I didn’t bother answering him further. I picked up two swords.

  The mages began chanting other spells, but I wasn’t dumb enough to let that happen. I hurled one of the swords, forcing the Imperial guards to step in and block it.

  “You fools!” the bearded mage shouted as he canceled his spell, the other mages doing the same. “I can’t aim with you in the way!”

  “But—”

  One of the Imperials glanced back at him. That was all I needed. I drove power into my legs and burst forward like lightning, closing the distance in an instant and slashing. Normally, a strike like that would have been blocked.

  This time, his head was turned. My sword connected to his flesh, and he screamed. I followed through, pulling out the last fire needle I had and driving it toward the mage—

  A barrier snapped into place.

  I reacted instantly, planting my foot against it and kicking off. The moment I flew back, the fire needle detonated, mana feeding into the explosion as it triggered a bigger explosion. The blast swallowed the Imperials, but not the mages.

  “Damn it!” the bearded mage roared, slamming his staff into the ground as another barrier rose. “This girl is a monster!”

  “We know!” another mage shouted, gripping his staff. “We’ll—”

  “We need to retreat!” A messenger suddenly rushed toward the mages, breathless. “Commander Ayas is dead! Orders just came down as the highest priority; Knights, mages, and officers will all retreat!”

  “What?!” the bearded mage snarled.

  I clicked my tongue. I wasn’t about to let them escape. They were too valuable, and too dangerous to leave alone. But more Imperials surged in, blocking my path. I was forced into close combat as the mages began pulling back.

  I tried to push through but more Imperials slammed into me.

  "Warrant Officer Aria!"

  Elion charged in with several soldiers, helping me push the Imperials back step by step as I fought.

  "Orders just came in!" he shouted over the noise. "We're to fall back before they bombard the Imperial camp with Field Spells!"

  "When?" I yelled, driving my sword into the last Imperial. He collapsed, and the rest finally broke and fled.

  “We were supposed to get the warning ten minutes ago!” Elion shouted, throwing an injured soldier over his shoulder and breaking into a run. “The Wind Birds were shot down, and only a wounded one made it through. We’ve got maybe a minute left. We need to move, now!”

  I had lost track of time, but there was no way we could leave the camp in a minute.

  Field Spells, as the name suggested, were spells designed to cover entire areas. They were basically large-scale bombardment on Earth, except the artillery was 4th Order mage, or groups of 3rd Order ones working together.

  The problem was accuracy. Almost all the mana went into high firepower, leaving almost nothing for accuracy. They weren't meant to hit specific targets like Snipe Spells.

  They were meant to erase everything in the zone. Surviving a Field Spell would take a miracle.

  “I thought we didn’t have a lot of mages!” I shouted as I carried two injured soldiers in my arms, hurrying to carry them.

  “They’ll only focus fire on the areas the Imperials are retreating to,” Elion said. “But we’re too close to that zone and need to pull back.”

  I bit my lip, briefly picturing Deryk and his two girlfriends, Isabella and Dorothy, cheerfully raining spells down on me. I decided I would punch them the next time we met.

  “Anyway, we need to—”

  That was when spells began raining down near us.

  Most of the spells were massive fireballs as they detonated on impact. Lightning bolts split midair into smaller arcs, and ice spears shattered into volleys of shards.

  Then, out of nowhere, one fireball came straight for us. I shoved the two injured soldiers toward a nearby soldier and grabbed Elion’s sword.

  “Hey,” Elion protested.

  I ignored him, as I jumped, meeting the fireball head-on. I breathed in, ignoring the pain in my body as I put all the strength I could muster into my arm. Then, I sliced it cleanly in half.

  I had had enough experience dealing with fireballs during Instructor Demo’s training and I wasn’t about to get burned now. Sighing in relief at my successful attempt, I was about to break my fall when something inside me snapped.

  Strength drained out of my body all at once and my limbs went numb.

  “Shi—” I face-planted into the ground before I could finish my sentence.

  For a brief moment, I was pretty sure I looked like a cartoon character. My face in the dirt, body stiff and straight. As it turned out, I wasn’t wrong.

  Elion caught me before it got worse, and since I was somehow unconscious by the fall, I was quickly handed off to Deryk who then loaded me into a carriage meant for injured soldiers. What happened after that was a story for another time.