Previous Chapter —Table of Contents— Next Chapter
William wanted to be personally involved in everything that was happening, but that was completely impossible. Although there wasn’t a squad of demons appearing every day, or even necessarily every week, it couldn’t be predicted when and where they would appear. Some villages and small towns were attacked and burned to the ground. On the whole, it probably wasn’t major, but William still wasn’t used to war. In his previous life, although he’d heard about wars overseas, he hadn’t personally experienced any. Here, he was involved enough to hear everything that was happening, and experience it.
There wasn’t much in the way of good news to be had in recent days. Although he hadn’t really expected anything, as time went by he received more official news of various places noninvolvement. There would be no help coming from Eclea to the east, and the mages guild there. Likewise, Liaoyang was not going to support Ostana in the war effort. Surprisingly the country immediately to the south, Ustil, sent a detachment, 864 men to be precise, 6 groups of 144- though of course in this world, it was a more round number. William still sometimes had trouble with the different number system, even though he’d been using it for a lifetime.
William knew that the soldiers from Ustil weren’t sent out of any form of goodwill. Rather, it was just enough men to hopefully tilt the tide in the favor of Ostana, but not enough to leave Ustil weakened in case they fell, and had to next defend themselves from the demons. That said, William was still grateful. After seeing how powerful the demons were in combat, he knew they would need as many people as they could get. He would have preferred to have more wizards, but that wasn’t something that was likely to happen. Their numbers were few enough already, how could he expect them to be risked fighting of a mere demon lord? Though, William knew that a “mere” demon lord was already enough of a threat. Hopefully, though, it was just a threat to the lives of people, and not to continued existence of humanity. The Demon King certainly was, but he had a much larger following, and destroyed souls, though many people still didn’t know the second part.
If he thought that this demon lord had ability or knowledge to destroy souls, William would consider keeping the wizards out of the combat. Even if it meant the destruction of the country. William was strongly of the impression that they had to bet everything on the next arrival of the Demon King. Fortunately, he didn’t have to make such a decision. Especially since it would mean he would have to uproot the whole guild- there would be no way for them to remain in a country the refused to fight for. However, if he really thought it necessary for the future, William would have done it. Living a second life gave William a different perspective on things. Though he personally would rather not die early, knowing what he did, he would choose that over losing the future of humanity itself. Certainly, almost everyone would claim the same, but if the circumstances arrived, many would hesitate. After all, they couldn’t be sure that their sacrifice would actually help. As for William himself… he took the time to think about possible scenarios, and hoped he actually would be able to follow through when it came down to it. Intellectually, at least, he was prepared to sacrifice himself for any reasonable chance of helping the future.
Being in an official position, Williams days were now full of waiting for things to happen. It was frustrating, because he couldn’t go out on patrol anymore. The same was true of Lila, since she would be needed for the conflict with the main army. It would probably only be several months until then. It would be better if the end of the war came more quickly, so that the conscripted soldiers, or what remained of them anyway, could return to their former lives. Right now, the country’s production was focused on the war effort, which made everything more expensive, especially food. With that and the farms that had been destroyed by invading demons, Ostana would need time to recover. However, it would be better for the country to have to spend years in recovery than to entirely be taken over or destroyed. The demons certainly didn’t seem interested in the first option.
William hoped the enemy would show up sooner, rather than later. The troops had enough time to train, and there weren’t many more people that could be conscripted in a short amount of time. William wasn’t sure whether the enemy needed to spend time training, or how large the population they were drawing from was, but either way it would be better for them to spend less time preparing. Sadly, he could not dictate their actions.
While he waited, William continued to write down information. Some things, he wasn’t sure he wanted to trust to the guild as a whole. This information he left with Marius and Lila. There was some information William decided was necessary to distribute. It was a somewhat incomplete version of the information he’d discovered about chanting. The information he wrote was that chants could be shortened or lengthened, depending upon the needs of the wizard. William wanted to teach those wizards who would be participating in the war this information, but he decided against it. All of them were old enough and set in their ways. Since it could cause them to doubt how magic worked, it was probably that many of them would not be confident in their casting. This would cause their spells to fail, possibly at critical moments. William knew there were many who would be able to adapt, but he couldn’t explain why chants could be shortened or lengthened without giving away more than he wanted to. Thus, he left the information behind to be distributed by the next Archmage, as they saw fit. It was possible that from the shortening and lengthening of chants it would be inferred that the words themselves didn’t matter. William was willing to take the risk of that information falling into the wrong hands. Either way, he didn’t intend for it to be a widely distributed method. Though he couldn’t dictate the actions of the next Archmage, he explained about the fact that the Demon King had many spies, so it should be avoided making the technique commonly known. Hopefully, the Archmages between him and the arrival of the next incarnation of the Demon King would be wise leaders.