370 And... He Was More Than Just A Gentleman

In another part of the battlefield, the Tisdale and Nota pair were doing surprisingly well! Although their enemies were of a higher rank, the gap was non-existent for Tisdale, who was getting buffs from the hammerhead shark plushie and Laeticia. She had excellent equipment on her, and she was getting support from Nota. Hence, the battle was pretty much going in her favor.

Would this mean that enough stats buffs were all it took to steer a battle in one's favor? The Cleric Walker kept casting support spell after support spell on Tisdale, making her as invincible as a goddess of war. She currently had no openings for the enemies to take advantage of! 

Mia — who was standing somewhere below, watching Tisdale's battle in the sky — was waiting for an opportunity to strike. Suddenly, she cast a spell, unleashing an icicle at one of the enemy sorcerers. This distracted the sorcerer, giving Tisdale enough time to cast an upgraded version of her Flame Pole — a spell called 'Doujou Temple Bell: One-Hundred Eight Fire Dragon Halberds'. It was created by the Archmage. The halberds pierced right through the sorcerer's shield, sending him hurtling to the ground, all the while being consumed by flames!

"Huh? When did she even learn this technique? I don't think I ever taught it to her!" Baiyi paused when he saw this.

"No you didn't; I did." The Archmage beamed proudly. "C'mon, with Dale's skills, she's more than qualified to learn these spells! Pretty sure you had noticed that, too, which begs the question: why didn't you teach her?"

"I wanted her to be firm with the basics, only after that would I be able to teach her these advanced spells. Besides, I really shouldn't show favoritism, right?" Baiyi clarified. Although the Fifth Walker doted on his eldest daughter a lot, he always believed in treating his students equally when it came to education. He could not be giving private classes only to certain individuals.

However, unlike Baiyi, the Archmage did not hide the fact that he heavily favored Tisdale, even more than Baiyi did. Back when the Archmage descended, he taught Tisdale some special spells, allowed her to choose where she wanted to visit or play, bought her whatever she fancied, caved in to her whims, and gave her more allowance than he gave the other students.

It was really a blessing in disguise that Tisdale was not raised by the old man, for Baiyi could certainly the type of woman she would have turned out to be if that really happened!

"Oh, don't you fret! I actually taught all of them some of my improved spells, alright? It's just that Dale has the best foundation; furthermore, she has a genuine talent in magic, so I sorta taught her a little bit more. Everyone else learned something, too; even that little dragon-child, Mordred," the Archmage explained.

The sort of teaching the Archmage did was different from Baiyi's. When teaching, Baiyi would make sure his students were paying attention to him, watching attentively as he slowly divulged the runes and glyphs of magical spells he wished to teach. He also made sure to teach them the correct mana changes to make during spell casting, as well as correct incantations and best real-world situations to use the spells. The Archmage, however, only taught the students spell incantations, formations, and the seemingly-copyrighted spell names. After that, he left them to their devices, allowing them to figure the rest out on their own.

Although this method of teaching was rather convenient, just how much the students learned was down to their intelligence and talent. That made this method of teaching pretty irresponsible.

Baiyi noticed something else from the Archmage's explanation, however, and he quickly followed it up. "Did you teach Mordred some spells, as well? I didn't know dragonkin could learn spells. What exactly did you teach her?"

"Of course; I thought her that spell! Ya do remember the one I named 'Rebellion Against My Beautiful Father', which is total — mmmffff!" The Archmage was abruptly muted by Baiyi, who went back to watch Cleric Walker's memory.

Only one of the enemy apex sorcerers remained, so Tisdale had it much easier. The surviving enemy sorcerer soon decided to beat a hasty retreat, and as soon as he turned around, Tisdale cast a spell that the Archmage had named 'Closing Rose That Fames Stars'. This spell swiftly struck the fleeing sorcerer, reducing him to cinders in a matter of seconds.

Having achieved victory, Tisdale grinned broadly and flashed a 'Victory' hand sign to her friends down below. She could not help mumbling to no one in particular, "Grandpa's magic spell may have the weirdest names ever, but I'll be lying if I say they aren't super awesome…"

Defeating two sorcerers way out of her league had brought her an immense surge of confidence. Bursting with confidence, Tisdale did not linger any longer and rushed to help the others, dropping members of the Wise Mad King's elite troop like flies.

Soon, the girls defeated two more Legendary-level enemies. After that, the only high-ranked enemies left was a Legendary-level sorcerer and the Rock Druid, who still had Mr. Bear suppressed.

The Legendary-level sorcerer had been tasked with providing his colleagues stat buffs, as well as controlling the potency of all magic within the area; these were tasks given to normal clerics on battlefields. This sorcerer was more of a strategist, whose primary role was to provide his team as many strategic advantages as possible, all the while imposing restrictions on the enemy. Furthermore, he was no good in actual combat.

He ended up being useless in the battle, however, even though all he was supposed to do was support. His ego was bruised by the fact that he had been bested by a hammerhead shark plushie. He was unable to counter the theurgical boosts the plushie provided its allies, but it was easily able to negate all the magic-repulsion and stat debuff spells he had cast.

Just how wide was the power gap between them? What exactly was in control of the damn plushie? Was the plushie an ancient Divine Regalia?

It annoyed him even more was that the plushie did not acknowledge his existence at any point in the battle, despite counteracting his buffs. It made him feel as though all the support he provided was unneeded and useless. The plushie was so good at what did that, not only did it provide stat buffs to its allies, but it also provided these buffs at the most useful of moments. Its perfectly-timed buffs had saved many of its fairy allies from losing their heads.

In other words, it was as though he had been dancing atop the plushie's plam all though the battle!

Furthermore, throughout the battle, the plushie had paid more attention to the beautiful female fairies of Eom Village battling their opponents; its gazed was specially fixed on the lush skin that was unveiled when skirts flew up. This did not mean that their snow-white, luscious thighs were missed by the plushie. At some point, the plushie stood rooted to a spot, as though in a daze. This only meant that it had been in control of the battle, right from the very start.

It was at this point that the Legendary-level sorcerer realized that they were fighting a losing battle, hence he instantly issued an order to retreat.

At this point, the hammerhead shark plushie shifted its gaze back to Laeticia, then it leaped up to the top of her head. After that, it began to urge her, saying, "The battle is won! We should go and exercise some of our joints and bones, too… Cia, let's go!"

"As you wish, Lord Joel," Laeticia murmured softly and slowly retracted her blessings — which she had cast on her allies for the battle — back into herself. This caused her wings of light to grow even larger. She raised her spear, which had been custom-made for Saintesses, preparing to dive into the fleeing enemies' ranks.

After hearing Laeticia call him by his name, the Cleric Walker became depressed. It was so dispirited that it did not pursue the Rock Druid, who was now fleeing the scene, having realized that the battle was not going his side's way. At this point, the demotivated Cleric Walker allowed his consciousness to depart the plushie, ascending back into the Void. That was the end of the memory it had passed Baiyi.

Now Baiyi understood why the Cleric had returned to the Void on his own — something that was out of character for him. Normally, he would have stayed to bask in the heaven that was accidental wardrobe malfunctions. So, this was why!

"I just… I just don't know how she figured it out..." The Cleric Walker mumbled dejectedly. It had indulged in the most carnal of actions during the battle, unaware that its every antic had been carefully observed by the village maiden. Although the Cleric Walker had not looked Laeticia's way throughout the battle, it was sure that the bad impression it left had been burned into the village girl's memory.

"Alas, the fearsome instincts of a woman." The Scholar Walker joked lightly, with a coy smile.

"At least you did exercise some restraint this time around, and you protected everyone from harm. Taking this into account, I supposed I should lighten your sentence," Baiyi concluded, choosing to mute the Cleric for an hour as a light punishment.

If Baiyi had to take into consideration all the antics that the Cleric Walker carried out after its Descent — including snugging into the bosoms of his girls, amongst others — the punishment would be way worse than muting. Baiyi would have retracted the protective barrier he had over the Cleric Walker's consciousness, exposing it to the real harsh condition of the Void. That would be traumatic for the Voidwalker, to say the least!

While Baiyi was watching the Cleric Walker's memories, the battle at Eom Village's remains had come to an end. Those who had lived through it, and were still of sound mind, had remained behind to clean up. Sitting on a large boulder, trying to catch its breath, was Mr. Bear, who now resembled a battered toy. Beside the bear was a small pea plant, which was being inhabited by a weakened Grandfather Tree, who had disappeared right before the battle started.

"Huh… I'm just… g-glad I'm still alive." Mr. Bear panted. As it watched Baiyi's students tend to the injured fairies, the bear's heart was filled with gratitude. "Thank… heavens for these kids."

"Bad luck almost always followed Sylvia, and it haw almost claimed the lives of her kinsmen, but she had brought with her a dependable man, who could shoulder her burden. That man, Hope… Even his students outdid themselves and gave us hope. There is nothing left for us to worry about, for the man had even rushed off to rescue Nydore. I'm so tired. I… need to rest." Grandfather Tree's words grew fainter, and soon, the little pea plant plopped down to the ground lifelessly.

Some of the villagers could not help gasping in surprise when they carried out a head-count, in order to know how many of them were still left. Only a dozen Eom Villagers had died. These dozen were killed before the Cleric Walker could begin casting his spell. After casting his theurgical spell, no one else had died. The worst they had suffered after the Cleric Walker's spell was a few grave injuries.

Thanks to the students, the enemy elite troop not only failed to capture the Eom Villagers and humans, but they had even left behind one of their own, who was now a prisoner of war!

This battle soon came to be known as the Miracle of Eom Village. This victory was recorded in the archive of the fairies, which was later known to generations after generations of descendants.

Saint Joel the Apostle was, indeed, a man of miracles.Oh, this spurred my musing! See: TL'S MUSINGS!Those in the FGO or F/A fandom probably saw that one coming, huh? For those who aren't into Fate Grand Order (or the anime, Fate/Apocrypha) though: 'Rebellion Against My Beautiful Father' is this big spell that Mordred (yes, it is the namesake of that dragon kid) uses to fight her own father, who's actually a woman. And not just any woman too… It's the poster child of Nasuverse— Artoria "Frownface" Pendragon! Yes, I call her Frownface. Oops? Hee hee.