Defense of the Royal Castle

The Royal Castle.

Doppo had gone to many places since his enlistment into the Rune Knights as it was simply part of his job now. However, The Royal Castle hadn't been one of them. In fact, this castle was so royal that it had its own surrounding city which the redhead couldn't recall its name. There were guards in every visible part of the vicinity, some being Rune Knights and some not, but all of them were regal, silent, and intimidating. That's what Doppo had initially thought, but he hadn't realized that he and Captain Stern looked just the same.

Doppo wasn't much of a talker when he was tired—and he was almost always tired. That's why he wasn't so eager to speak when given a debriefing by Parakee Fontagro, the head clerk of the castle. It seemed that only the dirty-blonde Captain Stern was concerned with the information given to them, along with the plethoras of other sorcerers congregating there with them. Doppo, on the other hand, cared so little that he was beginning to fall asleep after Parakee finished speaking. This wasn't because he was lazy or uninterested—he actually felt quite pressured, but it was hard to believe that even such a large group of sorcerers could hope to defend such a large vicinity on their own. However, it was even harder to believe that valuable information such as the infrastructure and layout of the Royal Castle was kept from them only until the day of or even the hour of the attack. He, Captain Stern, and every other sorcerer here had gathered to clean up the Magic Council's mess, but they couldn't even provide them the basics in order to prepare. As per usual, as irritated as Doppo was, he was impossible to read.

When the head clerk dismissed the sorcerers and sat back down, Doppo seemed somewhat disconnected from the lot. When he broke away from his dozing, he seemed to be the last one to familiarize himself with his settings—looking at who all was here, who wasn't, where the display of the layout was and whatnot. But he seemed to be mostly fixated on all of the entrances and exits of the Royal Palace until he eventually looked over at Captain Stern with his lazy, drooping blue eyes, and then to the exit nearest to them.

"This is stupid. . ." the redhead sighed, scratching the back of his head with irritable motions. It was all quite stupid, truly! What point was there in memorizing the layout now? It was the day of—no—the hour of the attack and no single person here was capable of understanding the layout and actually putting that to use in combat. In battle, not a single person would recall something as important but delayed as the layout. If you needed to go somewhere, you're better off looking for it yourself rather than recalling the silly layout! Or, so he thought at least.

Doppo had no intention of memorizing anything and instead wanted to expend his energy and concentration on looking for openings in the infrastructure that might prove to be beneficial from a strategic perspective. While it would've been ideal to keep the Royal Palace unscathed, it was unrealistic.

The Head Clerk had said that they expected whatshisname to launch the first assault in the frontal area of the castle, but he was also from the same group of people who hadn't bothered to inform their sorcerers of the layout before the invasion. Consequently, Doppo was already beginning to doubt the legitmacy of their preparations and wanted to begin preparing his own way.

The redhead tapped Captain Stern's broader shoulder, "I think I'm going to set up somewhere else, Sheldon. . . what about you. . .?" he inquired quietly and privately. Not only was he not much of a talker when tired—which he was always tired, again—but he was soft-spoken too.

When Sheldon agreed to come with him, Doppo gave him only an acknowledging nod as he would usually do instead of using his words. It was go time!

It wouldn't be completely untrue to say that Doppo was a man who made decisions based on his intuition from time to time. But his decisiveness was usually accompanied with constructive reasoning as well, making him especially talented for investigations and making strategic decisions the moment it was needed. Under these compromising circumstances, Doppo first wondered what he would do if he were the enemy. Well—he resolved to himself—he figured that he would most likely prioritize entering the castle during the initial chaos to gain the advantage over their distracted opponents, so looking for entrances on the flank or sides of the castle was something they were most likely doing at this very moment. And if his guess was correct, then the sprinting the two were doing down the corridors would not have been for nothing.

As the pair drew further and further away from the main group, all the entrances that Doppo was speculating about became clearer and clearer: wide windows, skylights, small doors lining the walls, and perhaps the most tremendous openning of them all—two collosal glass doors similar to the ones in front of the Royal Castle.

Tlot! Tlot! Tlot!

As Doppo came to a sliding stop in front of the doors, he could hear the sound of something galloping toward them from ahead. He couldn't see them yet, but they were fast approaching.

". . .I'll cover you. . ." Doppo murmured as black slime began to envelop him. It covered him from head to toe, not leaving any space for his body to be seen through its blackness. This was his slime magic, with an incredible affinity for defending himself and others. He knew that whatever was approaching didn't require both of them to be on the offense. So, instead, this redhead would put most of his efforts in minimizing damage and doing just as he said—covering Sheldon.

Their exchange would be brief since soon the approaching galloping came into clear view. Ten lance-wielding horsemen came charging at the doors from the near distance, all screaming and hollering as if their lives depended on it.

It didn't occur to Doppo that the glass doors being there would only inconvenience them until after the screaming horsemen were nearly upon it. Building a wall there wouldn't be possible if the doors were still in place, so, and carelessly, he extended a slime-covered hand in front of him and let it appear as if melting for what could only be considered a second. A ball of this black slime collected on his fingertip and shot forward like a bullet, both glass doors shattering apart with explosive motion as it pierced the middle.

Tiny pieces of glass scattered around the floor, but the ball of slime didn't stop there. It kept going until the ten horsemen galloping after them reduced to nine after it had struck the face of one of them, sending both him and his horse to the ground, clawing his face in an attempt to free himself from this puddy that grounded him. Despite his efforts, his fingers only got stuck in the slime as he tried to free his face from it! Doppo didn't seem to see this, however, and yawned through his slimy suit.

Doppo watched as two more horsemen toppled over their horses as Sheldon swiftly did them in and their comrades trampled over them, their distant eyes not even moving to look at their fallen, and now bloody and misshapen comrades.

Regardless of the brutality of the battalion, everything was otherwise going smoothly. With how many horsemen were being defeated by Sheldon's efforts alone, it seemed that supporting in the rear would've been an overestimation of the enemy's true ability and a waste of his own. So, without haste, the black slime that covered Doppo began to retreat back into the pores of his skin as if it were disappearing into thin air.

Clop! Clop! Clop!

The familiar sound of hooves galloping on the ground rung just behind the battling horsemen in the front as another group of horsemen came rushing forward to assist their struggling comrades. In a tremendous crescendo, their war cries roused even Doppo from his comfortable state.

"Hyraaaah!!!" they all screamed, waving their polearms and lances up in the air like some sort of declaration to both Sheldon and him. Altogether, they amounted to around seventeen, not including the defeated ones, and together, they formed a line formation of lances.

In Sheldon's rear, the lack of urgency that overwhelmed Doppo seemed to vanish in seeing this new wave of horsemen approach. In response, he resolved to take offense in a similar fashion as his colleague in the only way he knew how. He slicked his red shock of hair back to keep it from covering his face and rolled up his sleeves. As his hair quickly folded back onto his head, the beastlike ferocity in his blue-eyed gaze quickly became apparent. His mouth and forehead wrinkled and screwed as he glared from temple to temple, frowning from ear to ear. When he cracked his knuckles and neck, the popping sound was so rigid that it sounded like bones snapping, giving him an even more crazed look not unlike so many other instances where Doppo was completely invigorated!

"OOOIIIIIIIII!!" Doppo screamed at the ceiling in a booming crescendo that could put their war cries to shame, pointing at the approaching forces with veiny hands and a red face boiling with rage. "LET'S BASH THEIR MOTHERF*CKING SKULLS IN, SHELDON!! THEY AIN'T EVEN KNOW WHO THEY'RE F*CKING WITH!" Doppo exclaimed passionately. He sounded angry, and by all means, he was, but he was angry at no one in particular. It was a raw, unrefined rage that seemed to be most prevalent in his words. His comrades understood this, but to strangers, he seemed to appear outraged.

Bored with idleness, Doppo sprinted forward to face the horsemen that slipped passed Sheldon,  which only amounted to around five, and stopped. Two were adjacent to one another and in front of the rest, their polearms aimed for his fatigued flesh. They rode in a linear pathway, their speed steady and unchanging, if not increasing. While they were large and armed, they were terribly easy to avoid, even for people without any experience in combat. It was no surprise that their only strengths were in numbers.

After realizing this, Doppo decided not to move and instead erected himself with his hands in front of him. Not surprisingly, one of the two horsemen in front arrived before the other with their polearm in the same position. Because of this, its deflection was incredibly easy with his hands alone. Doppo grabbed the shaft of the spear, the bounded horseman refusing to release it from his grip as it charged forward.

As a result, when Doppo pulled the shaft of the spear toward him, the horseman soon followed. Awaiting him was a veiny fist aimed for the very center of his face. When the two objects met, the face was no longer there. The punch held so much force that the horseman's head vanished somewhere in the area, but no longer attached to his body. Doppo wasn't a liar, and quite literally bashed their skulls in.