by Funa
“I’m thinking of heading out for a bit... I heard there’s an army invading that’s just ripe for the picking...”
“What?!”
She proclaimed she’d eliminate the entire force coming from Rueda...by herself.
Roland desperately tried stopping her, but Kaoru insisted on going to face them alone. Knowing he was fighting a losing battle against her, Roland reluctantly compromised by making her take a few soldiers as escorts. All he could do then was believe in the power of the Goddess. At that point, it may have been a good idea for them to rethink their plans on protecting the capital as well...
“...So that’s why I’ll be heading out for a bit. If it comes down to it, take these and all the money you saved from working and get far away from here.”
Kaoru finished up her simple explanation of what was going on, handing a number of healing potions to the group of seven former street urchins that made up the Eyes of the Goddess. These potions weren’t like the mass produced ones on the market, but had effects similar to the tears of the goddess. They didn’t have expiration dates either.
As Kaoru went to leave, she suddenly found herself surrounded by the kids.
“““We’re coming with you.”””
“No way. There are 20,000 soldiers out there heading straight for us. You could die, you know?”
“““We’re coming with you!”””
Emile, the leader of the group, spoke up.
“If you didn’t help us when you did, two or three of us would’ve been dead by now, with another two or three dead within a couple years. The rest of us would’ve been killed off in turf wars between other thugs, or captured by the guards for stealing and hanged... But right now, we have a roof over our heads, and a house that doesn’t leak when it rains or let the wind inside. We’re all wearing clean clothes and have enough to eat to keep us full. We can actually talk about the future with each other now. We have to repay you for this somehow. And besides...”
“Besides...what?” Kaoru questioned.
“We’re the Eyes of the Goddess!” Emile answered, sticking out his chest. “Our job isn’t just to go out and gather information for the goddess, but to keep her safe as well!”
The other six children followed his example, puffing out their chests and nodding along. There wasn’t even the slightest chance they were going to back down on this.
Chapter 10: Counterattack
““Huh?””
Roland and Kaoru were in sync as they expressed their disbelief: Roland because he saw the seven children Kaoru had brought with her, and Kaoru because she saw Roland was fully prepared to come along with the soldiers he’d brought.
“It was already bad enough having you go, but why are you bringing kids into this as well?! The youngest one can’t be more than seven or eight!”
“Why is someone from the royal family coming with us?!”
Both of them retorted back and forth, attacking one another for their lack of common sense.
Unable to find a way to compromise on the sudden turn of events, they ended up leaving as one. All together, their effective fighting force consisted of Kaoru, the seven children whom made up the Eyes of the Goddess, Roland, Francette, eight of the imperial guards, and two drivers for the wagons—twenty people total.
Though Kaoru had warned the children they could die out here, she had no intention of putting them in that sort of danger. To prevent that outcome, she had her secret technique: to not give a damn and use everything she had. It wasn’t like Celes had given her any restrictions in exchange for all the cheat powers she’d received, though she was hoping she wouldn’t have to use them. She’d come up with all sorts of contingency plans as well, just in case.
Still, there was always a chance for the unexpected to happen. Things would become far worse, in more ways than one, if Roland were to die off. It wasn’t exactly ideal to show off her powers in front of people, no matter if they were soldiers, nobles, royal family, or otherwise. Human greed knew no bounds, after all.
But it was too late to worry about that now. She was told that the imperial guard and wagon drivers had already sworn their undying loyalty and wouldn’t reveal any of her secrets, but that didn’t matter. The royal family were the ones she didn’t want to know her secret the most and, lo and behold, the king’s brother was traveling along with their group.
The group from the royal palace were all on horseback, while Kaoru and the kids were traveling by wagon. The wagons weren’t anything fancy or extravagant like the nobles would use, but the type of covered wagons you’d find in a caravan. One wagon had Kaoru and the kids along with some food and water, while the other wagon was packed full of food, water, feed for the horses, and a plethora of camping equipment. The reason Kaoru’s wagon had supplies as well was so she could escape with the children if the time called for it, while the others would stay behind to hold off the enemy for as long as they could.
Even though she’d planned to go on foot and take care of this by herself, the fact that Kaoru suddenly found herself traveling with this hodgepodge of a unit brought a scowl to her face.
It was the day after Kaoru and her group left the capital, and they’d just finished passing through a fairly developed town. From here on out it would be nothing but small villages ahead of them. There was no point in building up any large towns close to a country as small as Rueda that didn’t have any significant industry going for it, so the area ahead of them was dotted with smaller settlements that existed only for the sake of agriculture.
It was around then that Kaoru and the others began preparing for what lay ahead. They instructed the inhabitants of every village they passed through to pack up the bare necessities of the peoples’ personal belongings and all the food on hand and evacuate for the time being. The villagers would be able to come back right away, so they directed the people to only take what was important and hide in the mountains. They also went about asking the villagers they met where the wells and other water sources were, taking note of those locations. Judging by when the enemy was expected to arrive and how fast that army was moving, they made sure to stress how important it was to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice before heading on to the next village.
There wasn’t a single person who didn’t know of Roland, the king’s brother, and if Kaoru (albeit reluctantly) also went so far as to introduce herself as an angel of the Goddess, there wasn’t a soul who opposed their idea. By giving potions to those who couldn’t move due to injuries or illness, they were able to double the speed at which the villagers could prepare to make an escape.
Six days after leaving the capital—
When Kaoru’s group reached a village that was supposed to be around two days away from the encroaching army, they gave the villagers the same instructions to get ready to evacuate. The only difference this time was that they told this village to do so immediately.
Four of the eight imperial guards stayed behind to assist and watch over the evacuation. The rest of the group left the wagons and horses behind as well and headed out on foot.
The reason they left four of the imperial guards behind was because they wouldn’t have the luxury of being able to check the village at their leisure afterward. The four guards were insurance in the event the enemy sent out a scout or an advance party to the village before Kaoru and the others could make their way back first.
As they continued on their way the next morning, Francette returned to the group in an outfit that made her look like a simple village girl. She had the most stamina out of the soldiers traveling with them, so she’d gone out alone to confirm the enemy’s location.
“The vanguard of the enemy troops were taking a short rest about two hours ahead of here. At the rate they’re moving, I would expect them to arrive in another six hours...”
Judging by the fact that it took two hours for Francette to come back, she could move around four times as fast as it took for the enemy to march.
“It doesn
’t look like there are any better spots farther ahead, and there’s always the chance they could make it here faster than we thought, so let’s head back to the gorge we passed by earlier and ambush them there.”
With a nod, everyone headed back along the road.
As Kaoru and the others retraced their steps, they’d pushed their way through one of the bumpy, off-beaten paths and made it up to a cliff that overlooked the road that ran through the gorge. The kids had trained their legs back when they were thieves...rather, back when they had to work extra hard to make a living, so they made it up without much trouble at all.
At the very least, there wasn’t anyone among them slower than Kaoru. She’d managed to get through the ordeal by downing potion after potion, but now they were all sloshing around uncomfortably in her stomach.
“They should be here any second now...” Kaoru muttered to herself, turning her attention from the road to look behind her.
There were all sorts of suspicious red and white glass spheres lined up there, all about the size of clenched fists, along with several tree branches around a meter in length that had nets made of vines attached to the end of them. One of the imperial guards had come up with the idea after Kaoru created the glass spheres and wondered aloud if there was any way to send them flying farther than when throwing them by hand.
“...They’re here.”
Francette doesn’t just have amazing endurance, she’s got eyes like a hawk as well... Dang, just how strong was that potion I gave her?
“It’s still not time for us to make our move,” Kaoru told the group, “so all I want you to do is stay calm and be careful not to be seen by anyone below us.”
The thirteen others silently nodded back in response.
The enemy forces gradually marched closer and closer, eventually advancing right below Kaoru and the others. They were getting ready to carry out their attack on the troops—but it wasn’t going to be against the ones at the front.
The Aligot army continued passing by right under their noses.
“Ah...” A slight expression of dull surprise escaped from Roland’s lips.
“Something wrong?” Kaoru asked.
“You see that group over there? I’m pretty sure they’re the commanders of this army. But I also caught a glimpse of those who looked like priests mixed in with them...and some were armed.”
Taking a look for herself, they definitely looked like priests. There were a few who looked like they could even be bishops, while the others wore simple cassocks that were outfitted with armor and weapons.
“So not only did Rueda let Aligot pass right through their country and try to hide it, now they’re even participating directly... My guess is that they’re planning on appealing to the people of the royal capital in the name of the Pope and attempting to take the capital’s main temple under their control. That, or they were planning on capturing Kaoru in the chaos after they invaded Grua...”
Anger clouded the children’s faces after hearing what Roland had said.
It had been some time since the vanguard of the troops passed them by, and the support troops bringing up the rear were almost directly under the cliff. Everyone was in position on top of the cliff, waiting for Kaoru’s signal.
That was when she gave the order:
“Throw the white ones at both ends of the line of support troops!”
The members of Kaoru’s group stationed at either end of the cliff began using their homemade slingshots to launch the white orbs at the soldiers below. Booming explosions shook the earth as they made impact after impact with the ground. Pandemonium spread throughout the support troops. The soldiers at the front were desperately looking around for their assailants, but they wouldn’t be able to find Kaoru and the others right away having hidden up on the cliff.
“The red ones next! Fire!”
As the red orbs made contact with the ground, swathes of flame spread out as they shattered on impact. They kept up their bombardment using their slingshots and throwing the glass orbs by hand, fire enveloping the army’s wagons one after the other. Unlike the soldiers, it was no easy task for the wagons to move off the road, and they ended up trapped with nowhere to go because of the craters and fires from the explosions cutting off their paths.
The white orbs were packed full of a substance similar to nitroglycerin, their threshold for exploding lowered for the sake of safety. The red orbs, on the other hand, were firebombs brimming with a flammable jelly-like substance made up of napalm and naphtha which was designed to spontaneously ignite once it made contact with the air. Even if you tried dousing the flames in water, they just wouldn’t go out.
After focusing their attacks solely on the support troops, Kaoru barked out her next order.
“Launch the red and white orbs toward the back of their main forces!”
Though they knew they were being attacked from the cliff, the archers weren’t able to get any shots off at Kaoru and the others because they would immediately back away after throwing a glass orb. The soldiers couldn’t exactly scramble up the cliffside to get to them right away, either. The only thing the army could do was take the full brunt of the one-sided attack.
Kaoru had begun the attack by focusing only on the support troops, but slowly changed targets to the main body of soldiers in the center, causing them to fly into a panic. They raced forward in a desperate attempt to escape the blast zone, yelling at the soldiers in front of them all the while. The soldiers ahead realized what was going on and began sprinting for dear life, but couldn’t move fast enough due to the heavy armor they wore. Despite this setback, they were all frantic to escape the hellish gorge as fast as humanly possible.
It was only after the Aligot army had made it out of the gorge and cautiously caught their breath when they finally realized something: The support troops weren’t following them.
When the soldiers went back to check on them, the surviving support troops were standing in a daze beside the wreckage of their wagons. Said wagons had carried their food, water, feed for horses, arrows, spare equipment, camping goods, weapons, and all sorts of other supplies...and they’d lost almost all of it in the attack.
Around that same time, Kaoru’s group had used the mountain trail to get in front of the Aligot army, emerging back onto the main road and heading toward the village.
Despite the fact they had women and children with them, they still moved much faster than the heavily armored soldiers. Besides the energy the Aligot troops spent fleeing from the attack, the soldiers most likely had their hands full dealing with the loss of their support troops and trying to come up with countermeasures to cope with it as well. It was almost guaranteed they wouldn’t try moving anywhere else today. That’s why Kaoru determined they should have a whole day’s head start on the troops.
All that was left was for her to prepare their invitation to hell...
The villagers had already finished evacuating by the time Kaoru and the others returned, and they were greeted by the four imperial guards they’d left there on standby. Luckily for them, they didn’t have any run-ins with enemy scouts or advance parties.
“All right, I want everyone to get ready to move out. First fill up on all the water you can. After I’m done with the well, you are absolutely not allowed to take any more water from it.”
Finished with her warning, Kaoru went house-to-house to check if the villagers had left any food or water behind. She either threw away the leftover water she found in bottles or pots, or poured a suspicious liquid into it. There was barely any food that hadn’t already been taken away, but she sprinkled this liquid over the little she managed to scrounge up as well.
When she finished checking all the houses, Kaoru headed out to the fields and began shoving all sorts of things into her Item Box.
After confirming that everyone had stocked up on water, she pulled out the notes she took the other day and visited each of the wells in the village, pouring more of the sketchy liquid into every one of them
.
“All right, let’s get going!”
They retraced their steps and went back to the next village, completely devoid of people after the evacuations finished.
The wagons they initially came with had become lighter after using up some of their supplies, meaning they could move at a pace faster than the Aligot army could ever hope to keep up with. They wouldn’t have to worry about the soldiers catching up to them, even if Kaoru took some extra time to do some...”preparations” of her own.
They also took the chance to send one of the imperial guards back to the royal capital as a messenger, asking them to relay a single message:
“Everything is going according to plan.”
“All our supplies have been destroyed?!” The general of Aligot’s northern invasionary forces was taken aback when he heard the news.
“Affirmative. We’ve gathered up what hasn’t been burnt from the attack, but we’ve lost almost all our reserve weapons and outdoor camping gear. We only have enough water to last two days, and only about a day’s worth of food...”
“Even the siege weapons?!”
“Yes, sir...”
Their mission was to lay siege on Grua and storm the castle, and it had to be done before Balmore’s main forces returned. But even if a majority of the enemy’s troops were being distracted by the empire’s forces to the west, they’d have a hell of a time fighting against a walled-off enemy without proper siege equipment.
Most importantly, there wasn’t anyone stupid enough to wage a battle of endurance against the enemy they were supposed to be laying siege to. They’d estimated the capital would have less than 10,000 troops available, but that wouldn’t mean a thing if they didn’t have the supplies to support their own troops.