Chapter 2: The Calm
Twilight falls, dusk has come, Yui's knights and Yumiko's pegasus riders are returning to the tower's entrance, even with their supplies replenished and wounds healed the morale is low, as they traverse the battlefield, with their torches they can see corpses from allies and foe.
The hot barren land where they have been fighting is now cold and dark, the only thing that illuminates dim light is the portals scattered across the field, the monsters also stopped attacking when the darkness started to swallow the sun, they to are resting their troops and replacing their fallen with the help of the portals, the only noise one can hear is from the top of the tower with a broken roof where multiple magic circles, energy beams, and giant crystals constantly appears.
As Yui and Yumiko approaches the bottom of the tower they saw Hayama sitting atop of a black dragon, around the dragon are tents where Zaimokuza's wizards are resting, some were trying to create more golems, when you look at the dark sky you can see some flames dancing, they are Saki's witches flying around a parameter around the tower with balls of fire following them to serve as a light and heat source for the cold night.
"Why are you here Hayama? You should be helping Hikki and Yukinon right now!" Yui said with a slightly annoyed tone to which Hayama answered by saying "This dragon could literally wipe you guys from existence! You know those two wouldn't want that, besides I'm replenishing my mana right now but I'll be returning to their side once I'm ready because fighting the Overseer without mana is suicide." Yui gave a nod of approval then looked at her troops and said "Set up camp and defenses." to which her soldiers answered with a "Yes ma'am!" and started to move.
The silence returned when the knights and pegasus riders finished setting up camp and defenses, but suddenly they heard multiple foot steps, the steps were becoming louder and closer every second, the knights raised their shields, the pegasus riders readied their lances, the wizards started incantating spells, and the witches gathered atop of their allies to provide air support.
Step, step, step. The steps were getting closer and they were ready to fire at all direction when the heard an exchace of words saying "Are you there Yuigahama? Miura? Chuuni-kun? " "Bro Tobechi you forgot someone" "Nah she is too scary Yamato! And even if she heard my call she won't answer me! She hates my guts!" "Well I kinda like Kawasaki-san" "No one asked Ooka!" the three became quiet and lit their torches, then the men at their back imitated them to and ignited their own torches, the light revealed a group of barbarians with three person in front of the group. The other two just look like the rest with wolf head as their head adornment, a thick fur as a cape, topless with tattoos in their chest with an axe strapped in their backs, with a ragged pants and sandals, the one in the middle of the three wears the same attire, the only difference is instead of a wolf head, he wears a lion's head, he has orange wavy hair and a dumb smile plastered in his face.
Yui have come out of the camp to meet Tobe with Yumiko and Saki, when Tobe saw the three approaching his group he talked to Ooka in his right and said "Bro there's your crush." which earned an annoyed look as a reply. Yui then talked to Tobe and asked "If your group was here, that means your efforts to terrorize the enemy camps with hit and run tactics is successful right?" this caused Tobe to scratch the back of his head then answered "No we lost to them, well we were going good the the beginning but some headless knights started commanding the dumber monsters and they flushed us out of their territory so expect more attacks in the morning, tehee!" which earned a "You're dumb!" from Yumiko but then Yui talked and said "Well the point of them attacking random enemy camps is to divert enemy forces so our main forces could make a foothold under the tower, they did fail on terrorizing the enemy camps but they did still diverted some of the enemies by being chased by them and we already have a camp here under the tower... Wait, you were chased Tobe?" to which Tobe answered with "Nah... No worries! They lost us when the night came, that's why we only lit our torches when we reached you!" after hearing his Yui released a sight of relief, Saki then walked back to the camp, but Yumiko isn't contented with Tobe's answers and said "You're being too incompetent Tobe! What if they followed you here? Did you really covered your tracks? And please remove that dumb smile of yours! The fate of humanity is literally in our hands!"
Then a rare sight appeared, Tobe with a serious face, Yumiko was shocked by this, Tobe talked back and said "A lot of my tribesmen died protecting me because I'm the chief's son and the next leader, they would literally throw their body to protect me, they would always have a smile at their face before dying because of protecting me and all I could do is to smile back letting them know that they succeeded protecting me! You can say all you want, I know that I'm incompetent and have lost many friends because of it, I'm ready to lose many things in this war but I'm not losing my smile that cost many lives... I Tobe Kakeru is serious about this fight Miura." Then Tobe grabbed the axe strapped in his back and pointed it at Yumiko, then all of his tribesmen stomped their right foot, shouted "AHU!" then pointed their weapons at Yumiko.
Yumiko then looked Tobe at the eye and said "You have grown" the she looked around and said "All of you have grown, excluding me..." Tobe then talked and said "You have grown too! If you were the old Miura you wouldn't risk your life at the frontlines, even if Hayato begs you to!" Tobe has got his smile back.
Yui seeing this exchange grew a smile in her face then talked and said "Well get your troops rested in here Kakeru-sama of the Tetsu no Kiba clan! Hot soup and warm blankets awaits you!"
Kilometers away from the tower and the camp-
A woman with purple hair short hair, wearing a white long sleeved blouse tucked in her brown gloves, a red scarf around her neck, black tight pants tucked in her brown boots, a rapier strapped in her waist is riding a horse, she is leading a caravan consisted by four carts, each cart was pulled by two horses and is guarded by a dozen of soldiers, six at each side, then at the back of the carts are five dozens of troops.
"Sagami-san you sure this tools we are delivering to the frontlines can do the job?" said a solder to Sagami which she answered by saying "These tools came from the Arcane Sanctuary where those nerdy wizards craft crazy things, failing is that last thing it'll do, and call me boss" the soldier just smiled then returned in line.
Back at the camp-
A big tent in the middle of the camp is now filled with the army' key personnels, a war council is being held. Inside the tent is a round wooden table with maps on top of it, Hayama the Champion of Dhazus (Name of their kingdom, cuz I've been just calling their kingdom kingdom), Yuigahama Grand General of the Knights of Dhazus, Miura leader of the White Wing knights, Zaimokuza the second in command of the Arcane Sanctuary, Kawasaki leader of the Silver Swarm Witches, Tobe leader of the surviving Tetsu no Kiba clan, then an empty chair, they all sit around the table respectively.
Their eyes is set on the empty chair, Yumiko then talked and said "Sagami should be here any time soon, but should we really be staking are live to some experimental tools?" which earned a retort from Zaimokuza and said "Worry not fair lady, those Portal Disruptors will be useful to our endeavors, and will help us change the tides of this war... GHAHAHAHAHA!" everyone ignored him at the fair lady part. Hayama then talked "As mush as I want to help you guys here, I must go back at the top of the tower first thing in the morning so I'll be counting on you guys to hold the enemies on your own." He received smiles and nods as a response.
At the top of the tower-
Hikigaya and Yukinoshita are both gasping for air, using too much mana has taken a toll on their bodies, they have been fighting the Overseer for hours, the Overseer on the other hand is spotless, all the damage he had taken has now been healed by regeneration magic. The Overseer took a step forward, Hikigaya and Yukinoshita took a step back...