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265 - - a water battle

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"Attention Fontana's army, and especially Barca's army! Turn back from here now. This is the land that we, the House of Arbalest, have ruled for many years. If you do not leave, you will sink to the bottom of this great river called Midway."

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　The Midway River is a very large river.

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　The Arbalest territory is a land where several rivers flow into each other, and some of them join to form larger rivers.

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　The Midway River was the largest of them all.

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　It is necessary to cross this river to get to the capital of Arbalest Territory.

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　However, this would be difficult for the enemy forces of Barca to accomplish.

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　This is because our army has already destroyed the bridge over the Midway River.

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　Without the Midway Bridge, the army of Barca will have no choice but to make a major detour to reach the capital, or to use ships to cross the river.

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　However, it would be difficult for them to make a detour.

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　It would be inefficient to move a large army because it would have to travel a considerable distance.

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　And as expected, the Fontana forces, including Barca's forces, were positioned near the Midway River.

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　They would definitely use boats to cross the river.

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　That is where we will intercept them.

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　The Arbalest army definitely has a better technique of maneuvering ships using the current of the water.

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　And above all, they can attack Ars von Barka, the head of Barka, by the master of the house.

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　Even Ars von Barka will not be able to prevent [distant thunder] on the water.

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　The fleet is lined up on the Midway River.

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　Then, on one of the ships, the Lord will step forward and make a loud and dignified preamble.

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　In response, a ship from the Fontana side also comes out and speaks.

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　They are laying out some sort of cause that they used for this invasion of Arbalest.

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　They say that they want the Arbalest family to prepare ships to transport the king who is staying in Fontana to the royal territory.

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　They claim that the refusal of the Arbalests to do so was disloyalty to the king, which led to this battle.

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　However, this was not a request that would be heeded.

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　Fontana demanded that all of Arbalest's riverboats be provided.

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　This was unacceptable.

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　It was clearly a demand designed only to attack us.

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　It was a vicious demand that took advantage of the king's presence.

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　The sovereign pointed that out and rejected it.

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　Well, the other party must know that his claim cannot be accepted.

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　Both sides argue their respective points, and after a pause, the ship with the master on board turns back to the center of the fleet.

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　Thus, the Arbalest and Fontana forces collided on the Midway River.

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　* * *

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"Move!　Show the Balkan army the horror of the Arbalest army. We must defeat Ars von Barca!"

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　The Lord of the House gave the order, and the numerous riverboats of the Arbalest floating on the Midway River began to move.

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　Most of the riverboats are large enough to accommodate 10 to 20 people each.

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　It is truly a spectacular sight to see approximately 500 riverboats start to move at the voice of the Lord.

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　In contrast, Fontana's boats are small boats that must have been collected from the villages near the river.

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　They would be no match for him.

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　The Arbalest army has caught the current of the river, and is closing in on Fontana's army at a rapid pace.

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　Seeing the unfamiliar maneuvering skills of their opponents, they were convinced.

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　They were sure that they could win this battle.

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Summoning the Ice Spirit

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　At that moment, a voice was heard on the wind.

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　It was not particularly loud.

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　But it was definitely audible.

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　My head recognized the words as if they were flowing naturally into my ears.

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　Summon ice spirit.

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　It is definitely a high-level magic that is possessed by the head of the Fontana family.

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　And there is only one person here who can use it.

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　Ars von Valka.

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　He was the one who activated the higher magic.

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　I look at the Fontana fleet with a start.

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　To his surprise, he is on the first ship of the fleet.

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　Ars von Barka, with whom the master of the fleet had spoken before, was still at the front of the enemy fleet.

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　Why?

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　Normally, after the opening speech, he would have pulled back.

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　However, Ars von Barka, as seen from here, is standing comfortably at the front of the enemy fleet.

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　And then, something strange began to happen around Ars Von Valka.

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　Blue balls of light came out one after another.

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　Could that be the ice spirit he could summon?

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　It is said to be the weakest ice spirit with no offensive power at all.

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　What in the world is he going to do with it?

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　Riding the current of the river, we are getting closer and closer to our opponent.

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　But all the while, Ars von Barka was surrounded by ice nymphs.

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　No, not only that.

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　The number of them kept increasing.

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　Not only around his ship, but everything around it was covered in blue balls of light.

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　What's the point?

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　Isn't that just letting them know where you are and inviting danger yourself?

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Freeze.

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What the hell?

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　But the situation changed much faster than we could reach them.

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　He said one word.

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　That was all it took for the current situation to change drastically.

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　I freeze.

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　I felt like I was being shown something impossible.

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　The Midway is a wide river, not so fast flowing.

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　But water is flowing.

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　But the river was starting to freeze.

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　Starting from Ars von Barca.

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　From the location of the guy in the boat at the head of Fontana's army, the water of the river had begun to freeze toward this side of the river, which was supposed to be moving toward that location.

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"That's ridiculous. He's bluffing. That's not possible. It is impossible to freeze an area large enough to stop the movement of our fleet.

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"No, no. Wait, my lord. Look at him again. He, Ars von Valka, holds in his hand...

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"What do you hold in your hand?　......, is that a magic stone?　It's also an oversized ......"

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"Could that be the rumored dragon magic stone?　If he is using the magic contained in that magic stone to freeze his surroundings, then ....... It's not good, my lord. He may try to freeze this Midway River and move on the ice to get at us. I think he is trying to lead us into a water battle, but I think he is trying to outwit us.

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"...... I see. So that's how you use an ice spirit with no power. All hands, be on alert! They will run on this ice and board our ships to engage us in hand-to-hand combat!

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　What a frightening man.

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　He does things we never thought possible.

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　We had no idea that he would try to overturn our disadvantageous situation by such forceful means.

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　In a panic, we predict his possible actions and tell our master.

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　Hearing this, the master immediately responded.

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　The soldiers of the Arbalest army seemed to have realized the gravity of the situation when they saw that the ice had spread to the point where our ship could not proceed.

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　Not only the water in the river, but even the ship they were on was frozen over.

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　They hurriedly put down the oars and grabbed their weapons in their hands.

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　We have no choice but to do this.

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　A decisive battle on a river frozen in motion by the ice.

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　However, the situation is not as bad as one might think.

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　After all, this place has not changed from the water to the ground.

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　Barka's magic such as [wall building] cannot be used on the ice.

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　If that is the case, we have the advantage of having more soldiers.

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"Burn the ice with the ice-blazing sword!

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　But the voice of Ars von Barka, which was heard next, failed to elicit a response from me, my master, or any of the other knights.

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　No, we had heard it.

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　I could clearly hear what he said.

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　But we had no idea what they meant.

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　None of us could react.

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　Neither could I.

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　All I could do was to watch with both eyes what Ars von Barka did next.

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　Ars Von Barca comes out from the end of the boat and pulls a sword from his waist.

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　What is that?

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　I have never seen a sword like that.

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　It's a pale purple sword.

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　Could it be a magic sword?

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　However, it is different from any other magic swords in Barca, such as the Hard Fang Sword, the Holy Sword, and the Nine-Tailed Sword.

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　It was a sword that I had never even heard of when I was investigating Barka.

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　Ars von Barka thrusts the light purple sword onto the ice.

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　I saw it and noticed it for the first time.

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　He summoned an ice spirit and froze the area around him.

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　Seeing this, I had thought that he was going to approach our fleet through the ice.

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　But I was wrong.

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　The ice only extended in front of Ars von Barca, that is, toward our army of Arbalest.

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　The water around Fontana's ship was not frozen at all.

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　Doesn't that mean that they didn't intend to travel on the ice in the first place?

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"Also, it's on fire: ....... The ice is on fire. It's coming this way!"

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"Oh, no way. Why is the ice burning?

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"Pull back!　Pull back now! Make a sharp turn."

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"Impossible! All the ships in our fleet are blocked by the ice. They can't turn, they can't move."

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　It was a scream.

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　Our fleet was moving on the Midway River, the great river of the Arbalest.

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　The fleet had been blocked from moving by countless ice spirits summoned by Ars von Barka.

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　And it did not end there.

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　He possessed a magic sword that I had never seen before.

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　It was this that sealed the defeat of Arbalest's army.

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　The ice that had frozen the fleet turned to flame.

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　At first it seemed as if the ice was on fire, but perhaps it was not.

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　The ice itself is turning into flames.

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　The ice that froze the ship and hardened turned into flames.

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　That means that every ship on board the Arbalest is on fire.

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　It's my fault.

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　If I had not suggested water warfare to my master and the others, none of this would have happened.

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　The Balkan army had never experienced warfare on the water before.

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　There is no doubt about that.

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　If we had fought a battle on the water, the Arbalest would have been superior without a doubt.

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　There is no doubt about that.

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　But they were wrong.

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　Ars von Barka was by no means incapable of fighting on the water.

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　On the contrary.

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　His use of the Ice Spirit Summoner and the unknown magic sword, the Ice Flame Sword.

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　The combination of the two leads to a completely different conclusion.

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　Do not fight Ars von Valka on the water.

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　Wait for the moment when you can fall into the water with the burning army of Arbalest, burning yourself in the flames.

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　Our army of Arbalest did not even exchange blows with him, and thus we were all burned to death on the river.

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