--Mira POV--

This was an army in a true sense of the word. The sheer size of it left many questions unanswered, and added many more to the pile. ‘How are there so many?’ ‘Why have they been showing up so much frequently?’ ‘How the hell are we going to survive this?’

For now though, we weren't even in active combat yet. The Shadows were just standing there, as if waiting for something. Like the group we fought on the road, these had a formation to their ranks, as if put together by someone with genuine tactical awareness. I found a man who had grey hair and ears - common for wolfkin - with a pale scar crossing over his cheekbone. Judging by his demeanor and the way he watched the enemy, he was in charge. Of course, we approached him. He began to speak, not taking his eyes away from the Shadows for an instant.

“You three are the adventurers from Lithhelm I take it?”

As the leader of my party, I took charge in responding first, as I usually do.

“We are. You seem like you're in charge around here.”

“Mhm.”

“What should we do to help?”

“You specialize in fighting these monstrosities, yes? I was hoping you could tell me what to do. Hmm… We just received a shipment of weapons from the foxkins. Maybe you could see about using those. They're design's a bit strange, but they're easy to handle and can kill one of those guys if you hit them in the right spot. Maybe a Light buff can make one more effective? In any case, you aren't needed until the fighting begins.”

“Alright, then.”

I nodded my head and turned to walk back down the stairs leading off the wall with the other two following me. We returned to where we left the supply wagons we escorted, and in another part of the square there were a few more of them. Distributing weapons amongst the soldiers were a few foxkin men, the first of their kind I've seen since Freiya. We stood in line and waited to recieve our own weapons, and a few minutes later it was our turn. My arrival, apparently, piqued the interest of the man in front of me.

“G'day, ma'am. Is that a katana I see? Good choice. That's the make of my people. Here's your rifle.”

So it's called a rifle. What the man handed me looked almost like a long, black pipe with a smaller tube at the end. The back end was a kind of triangle, and the top had a small part near the smaller end that was also triangular. The bottom had a strange rectangular hole almost directly under the object on top, and closer to the back there was a handle looking part with another piece jutting out of the main tube in front of it. It was hard to describe, but for some reason I thought of the word ‘trigger.’

“What does it do?”

“It's a ranged weapon, I guess similar to a crossbow, but instead of firing bolts it uses small, concentrated explosions to shoot of these things called bullets. Speaking of which, here you go.”

He handed me a sort of rectangular case, filled with the pointed silver ‘bullets’. It looked like it would slot perfectly into the hole on the rifle. When I tried that it made a satisfying click. He handed me a few more of the cases that I stored in the satchel on my belt.

“As you figured out just now, these magazines are loaded there, and they automatically push a bullet into the barrel if it's empty, so you don't have to do that manually between each shot. Keep in mind, these rounds are specialy made from silver in order to harm Shadows, but their potency is less than even that of the weakest Light spells, so you need to be careful aiming. That's all from me, you'll have to find someone else to teach you how to shoot it.”

“Thank you.”

I stepped away and waited for the others to finish getting their rifles before we set off to find a place to learn how to use these. We found a good training yard that already had a few people practicing, so we joined them. Luci was the first to voice her confusion.

“So… I guess we just point it and pull on this?”

“Looks to be what everyone else here is doing. Try it.”

Luci imitated the other men and women here and pointed her rifle at one of the targets. After a few seconds, she pulled the trigger. After a loud bang I noticed a small hole appeard in the shoulder of the target dummy after sending a small cloud of hay dust into the air.

“Hmm… I wonder…”

I heard Luci cast Mark after some brief muttering, and this time she hit the chest of the dummy. It looks like that's a useful spell to have for this.

“Hey Rick, your turn.”

“Hm? ‘Kay.”

Rick looked distracted by something as he lifted his own weapon. I also noticed that he hasn't really been talking much recently either… He pointed his own rifle at the dummy, and shot it. I saw a mini explosion of dirt a good distance behind the target.

“Damn… This is pretty hard.”

“Keep practicing, you'll get it eventually. Mira?”

“Right.”

It was my turn now. Like the others, I raised it and aimed at the human-shaped hay. I cast Mark as I instinctively looked down the length of the barrel. I lined the point of the triangle piece up with the center of the chest, and I pulled the trigger. It hit beside where Luci landed her second shot. It was a decent first try all things considered.

We spent around an hour waiting around, giving Rick time to get used to his weapon. To put it bluntly, he simply didn't have much talent when it came to using a ranged weapon. By the end of the hour, he was at least hitting the target consistently, so we figured it was time to head back to the wall. The fighting hasn't broken out yet, but it's probably best to be there for when it does. We grabbed some extra ammunition from the foxkin carts on the way back. I also figured out that the rifles were also called guns, and I much prefered that over saying the word ‘rifle’ every time I referred to one.

We took up position on the wall and waited for the enemy to make a move. First one hour passed, then another. It was painfully slow. Apparently, they showed up early on yesterday, in a group only a few thousand members strong, and that was when the messenger was sent to Lithhellm. Since then, they haven't moved at all, and when the sun started rising this morning they suddenly grew to his size.

More time passed, until the first traces of sunset could be seen. That was when they started moving. First the grounded forces started marching in unison towards the village, then the Darkwings took flight. Obviously, we weren't the only ones who noticed. The soldiers lining the wall readied themselves, and the commander of the forces wasted no time in giving orders.

“Everyone! The enemy is moving! Defend Lexica with everything you have and you may fire at will!!”

All hell broke loose when he finished giving the command. The Shadows began their attack in earnest now. The Darkwings began their demonic shrieking and quickly flew towards us while the rest of them picked up their pace as well. On our side we were attacking with everything we had. Gunshots were booming everywhere around me as a ran around casting Divinity on everyone I could until I could fell my mana starting to run out. I left plenty in case I needed it, but I definitely didn't act sparingly with it. With the combined effectiveness of the bullets and my magic, each shot would nearly instantly kill any enemy hit, and we definitely needed that. 

Most of the enemies were on the ground, and that's where most of our attention was focused. The majority of the soldiers less experienced with aiming - like Rick - could just shoot down at the horde with no care about aiming and they would still kill at least one or two with every shot fired. The rest of us, about a third, targeted the fliers.

With Mark, Luci and I could almost certainly hit whatever target we were aiming for, so we started picking off whatever looked the most threatening. Whenever a decent sized group slipped through the wall of bullets, I would stop shooting and throw a Light Javelin to wipe out as many as I could.

The longer time had passed, the worse our chances seemed to look. A little over an hour after the sun had completely set, we had taken down a sizable amount of the enemy's forces, but the hundred thousand or so we've killed was still barely a small dent. I had been scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of mana for a while now, and without my Light magic pushing them back they've been slowly advancing. We still had plenty of ammo left for the guns, but at this rate that would soon run out too, and then we'd be overrun. If I'm being honest, I was genuinely considering deserting. We weren't technically bound by a quest for this fight, it was completely optional and the main quest was already completed. The Guildmaster wouldn't be happy, but I'm sure she'd understand. And if we escape I could try to learn a stronger spell to protect the next village attacked.

When I was about to try to voice my opinion to my teammates, the Shadows stopped moving. All at once, they turned around and looked to the east of where they advanced from. I heard one of the younger soldiers raise hid voice when everyone stopped shooting. 

“Look! Over there!”

I couldn't see where he was pointing, but I could find out easily enough by following the direction the Shadows were facing. I saw a small white light, slowly growing brighter. The enemy saw the same thing, and they all made a mad dash towards the new sight. Before they could close in on it, it erupted into a massive beam of light. It looked like someone had taken Purge, flipped it on its side, and stretched it. The light swept through the enemy army, decimating everything on the ground before raising into the air and repeating for the fliers until there were no Shadows remaining. Did we somehow win?

--Setsuna POV--

“Why are there so many!?”

I cast my fire magic into the group of Shadows that tries to attack me. How did they even make it into the village? They stood no match against my Sacred Fire magic, burning as if touched by the Light of the Goddess herself.

“Stay behind us!”

Shimo - who is technically my bodyguard - took the lead in the defense. She drew her greatsword and stood in front of me, and seeing that Ina drew her daggers and stood against my back. Kino drew her sword and rushed into the midst of the battle around us. She's too similar to her brother in some ways…

The first enemy she ran into fell quickly enough - it was a Stalker, and they're typically a little weaker than regular Shadows. She only managed to cut into the shoulder of the next one - a Brawler - before jumping back to stand by me, taking a more defensive stance.

“Damn! How do we even hurt them? It's like my sword refuses to cut deeper!”

Ina answered her complaints.

“The need to be killed with Light magic! The only other things that can harm them are Setsuna's Light-aligned Fire or the specialized bullets we make here!”

“I've never been good with a gun, I'll stay here! I won't let any of them past me no matter how much damage I can do!”

The corners of my mouth briefly tilted up in a smile. I'm really lucky to have friends like these, willing to risk their lives for me like this. I focused on burning down the flying Shadows. If I remember properly they're called Darkwings, and rightfully so. If any of the grounded enemies got too close, either Shimo would freeze them in place and swing her greatsword with immense power until they were finally killed or Ina and Kino would attack as quickly as they could to disable until I could shoot a small ball of fire and finish it. 

A short while after nightfall it started to look like the fighting was coming to an end. Someone had called for Kino to help with something, so it was just Shimo and Ina with me now. Looking around, I couldn't see any more Shadows, and I couldn't hear any gunfire either. We finally let our guard down when we saw Kino walking back towards us.

That, however, turned out to be a mistake. I heard the signature screeching of a Darkwing attacking its prey, and when I looked up I saw a group of them doing straight for us. I raised my arm to fire off my magic to quickly deal with them. Before I could shoot them though, I felt myself being grabbed from behind and held in place. They covered my mouth so I couldn't yell for help. In my peripherals I could see the same thing happen to the other two as well. A pair of the Darkwings grabbed me my shoulders with their talon-like feet and started lifting.

“No!!”

Kino started sprinting towards us when she saw what was happening, but unfortunately, she's just a normal human, and she can't even use magic, so it was all for naught. 

My head was spinning from lack of oxygen as the Darkwings took flight. I could tell my consciousness was fading. As all thoughts slipped from my mind, all that remained was grief and regret. Suspended hundreds of feet in the air and traveling at high speeds, I ceased to think any longer.