by Ryota Hori
What’s making him panic? Is he worried our reinforcements might arrive? No... They know it would take time to march here. So that means...
Piecing together the scattered bits of information he had led him to just one conclusion.
“Hey! Can anyone around here tell me about Kael?!”
“Yes, milord!” A knight who was nearby responded to Ryoma’s question. “I know him all too well!”
“What kind of person is he?”
The knight answered Ryoma’s question with hateful vilification. He perhaps deserved it for his betrayal of Princess Lupis, but Ryoma could only furrow his brow.
Everything he’s saying is biased... Does he even understand what I’m asking?
Ryoma was asking for information based on objective facts, not their personal feelings for the man. He was free to hate Kael, and given how he turned his back on Princess Lupis and went to Duke Gelhart’s side, this hatred was a natural reaction, but there was no winning the battle if they couldn’t estimate the enemy’s prowess fairly.
This person is strong because they’re admirable. That person is weak because they’re contemptible. Are they clever or not? Are they handsome or not? People had a way of estimating other people’s abilities based on their preferences.
But people’s abilities had no correlation with other people’s feelings towards them. Of course, people would always harbor some degree of bias, but the question was whether one made the effort to not let that cloud their fair perception of things.
Put simply, whether they were prone to discrimination.
Unfortunately, Rhoadseria’s knights were found wanting when it came to making that distinction. They were like immature children in that regard.
Ignoring half of the deluge of insults the knight was unleashing, Ryoma tried to sketch an image of Kael in his mind’s eye.
Arrogant, gutless, coward, liar... He really hates the guy, huh... Still, even though I have to take what he says with a grain of salt, Kael looks to be something of an idiosyncratic person... Which means...
Hearing all the hatred Kael somehow managed to earn to his name, Ryoma smiled bitterly as he tilted his head. The image Ryoma pieced together was a dignified, intellectual type who had absolute confidence in himself; not the type to rely on a simple approach of brute force.
Which left only two options. Ryoma let his gaze wander over the knight, who was still hurling insults at Kael.
Either their evaluation of him is completely off the mark, or something happened to make a person like that lose their cool...
What would he do, were he in Kael’s position? He didn’t know the circumstances behind it, but Kael Iruna betrayed the mistress he had served for years. The question was, what did he seek to achieve in doing that?
At that moment, a thought flashed in Ryoma’s mind.
I get it. It’s not that he won’t fall back... He can’t afford to fall back...
Ryoma accurately grasped at Kael’s predicament. Now that he’d betrayed Princess Lupis, his position within the nobles’ faction was fragile, and he was currently racking his brain for a way to defend himself with one hand and elevate his position within the faction with the other.
That’s good, then... If that’s what the enemy’s up to, there’s no need to hesitate to use our countermeasure...
People acting recklessly out of a greedy desire to gain merit to their name was common enough, and Kael’s chances at victory seemed promising.
And indeed, if they didn’t have the ace in the hole of using verbal thaumaturgy to build their defenses and were raided halfway through solidifying their position, they would no doubt have been wiped out.
Kael doesn’t have the option of pulling back. If he does that, he’ll be mocked for the rest of his life. And he knows that better than anyone. So he has to win this battle no matter what, even if it means building up a mountain of corpses in the process.
After concluding there was no further trick behind Kael’s tactics, Ryoma decided to play the other ace he had up his sleeve.
“Runners! The enemy should press down on us from all three directions soon. We’ll be using our ace earlier than usual. Give Sara the signal to move north. I’ll go cover for Laura!”
“Yes, milord!”
At Ryoma’s beckoning, several runners on horseback took off to let the others know of his orders.
“Increase your rate of fire! There’s no need to waste time aiming. The enemy’s forces are vast!” Laura cried out as intense fighting took place at her position along the central gate.
The enemy was swarming them like a veritable flock of locusts, with madness being their driving force. Enduring the hail of arrows, a group of commoner soldiers reached the gate again.
“No good! Spearmen unit, move forward...! Thrust!” Laura repeated the order for what felt like the thousandth time.
“Lady Laura! The enemies are too many! At this rate...” A knight standing at her side raised his voice in complaint.
The charge of the endless rows of enemy soldiers was applying a great deal of stress on the defending knights.
“Silence! We are in no way at a disadvantage! Master Ryoma ordered us to defend this gate, did he not?!”
Laura’s words were true; everything was going according to Ryoma’s plan so far. The dry moat and fence had slowed down the enemy’s marching speed to a crawl, allowing them to whittle their numbers down. He strictly forbade the knights from melee combat, instead stressing their cooperation as a unit, and lowering their casualty rate by having them cover for each other.
The knights hated it, but Laura saw Ryoma’s tactics in very high regard. They were essentially evenly matched with their enemy, and one couldn’t quite say they were at a disadvantage.
But even at Laura’s rebuking, the knight’s face remained gloomy.
“But at this rate... Can we really hold out until Her Majesty’s reinforcements arrive?”
His question was certainly valid. They were isolated in enemy territory, where the enemy was capable of reinforcing their numbers, while Ryoma’s encampment had no line of supply. Worse yet, the enemy were repeating reckless, suicidal runs with no regard for their losses. Their zeal was only growing more intense. Their ability to push the enemy back right now didn’t mean they’d be able to do it for a prolonged period of time.
And human beings have a tendency to feel far more anxious about the possible future than the present before them. It was only natural the knights would start harboring doubts.
This is bad... We must do something...
Laura wasn’t unfazed by this either. But she knew that if her spirit were to break here, all would be lost. She desperately thought back to the words her father had told her once, when she was little.
Remember this, Laura. Those who stand on top of other people must never make their weakness known. Even when you’re afraid and wish to run away, you must never let it rise to the surface and remain composed. It is that quality which is required of those who command others.
What mattered most on the field of battle was one’s strength of will. If she let this knight’s weak-spirited words stand, they would spread like a virus and cause the unit’s morale to plummet.
But sooner than Laura could speak, a helping hand extended to assist her.
“Don’t worry, everyone! The enemy will be wiped out soon enough. Just hang on until then!”
“Master Ryoma!” Laura raised her voice in surprise at the voice that echoed suddenly through the battlefield. “What are you doing here...? What about command of the stronghold? And what do you mean, the enemy will be wiped out...?”
Ryoma regarded Laura’s barrage of questions with small nods of the head.
“The enemy’s main force is moving... They likely intend to finish this off with one push.”
“So... This is why the enemy’s been applying so much more pressure...” Laura nodded.
“Yeah, I figured, which is why I came to the frontlines myself.”
&nb
sp; Ryoma’s gaze wandered about the area. Nothing seemed to be off for the time being, but he didn’t fail to catch sight of the doubt in the eyes of the knights looking back at him.
Looks like they’re really on edge...
Like cups of water filled to the brim, where the slightest motion could make the liquid overflow.
“But is this all right...? I mean... What of Lione and the others?”
Ryoma placed a hand on Laura’s head as her anxious glance clung to him, patting her gently.
“Don’t worry. I gave them their orders. The rest depends on when we give Sara the signal.”
At Ryoma’s words, Laura’s eyes widened.
“Are you quite sure we should be using it now...?”
That ace was prepared to stall the enemy when they sent out their main force. There were two major points Ryoma’s side had to be wary of, given their inferiority in numbers. The first was to minimize their losses at all costs, and the other was to crush the enemy’s morale.
The moat and fence had already sufficiently accomplished the first objective. But what of the second? Bluntly put, they only barely maintained the most minimal line in that regard. And that was, perhaps, only natural. In terms of morale, the defending side was under greater stress compared to the attackers, as the latter had the clear advantage.
And there was another problem— the soldiers he was leading. Most of Ryoma’s soldiers this time were knights Princess Lupis lent him the right of command over. Their trust in a wanderer like Ryoma was low to begin with. They were lacking in the most important part of holding a defensive line—faith in their commander. Hence why their morale was low.
They were obeying Ryoma since there had been no losses so far, but their patience wouldn’t last if the enemy were to break through one of the gates. And so, Ryoma needed to present tangible achievements to buy the knights’ loyalty.
Achievements in the form of the enemy’s corpses...
“Yeah, we’ll have to do it earlier than planned, but it’s our best bet... Besides, killing off as many as we can while we have the chance to do so will make things easier later down the line... And hey, we still have other cards to play. It’ll be all right.”
There was a ghastly smile on Ryoma’s lips. It was a sneer, directed at the foolish enemy commander and his pitiful soldiers.
“What are you fools doing?! Haven’t you broken through the gate yet?!” Kael shouted, annoyed with the enemy’s persistent defense.
His precious two thousand knights had taken to the frontlines, and Kael had expected that the fence would be taken down and they’d be rushing into the enemy’s base by now. But Ryoma’s defenses still stood strong.
“Ugh, enough! I’ll take direct command!”
Having run out of patience, he rode his horse into the moat to inspire his troops, willingly walking into dangerous ground.
A slight tremble ran across the battlefield. The slightest of disturbances, the smallest of changes most people wouldn’t even notice.
But Ryoma wasn’t one to let it slip by without paying it any heed.
“Now! Give Sara the signal!” Ryoma instructed the mercenary waiting behind him.
A flaming arrow flew through the sky. It served as the beacon heralding the carnage to come.
“It’s the signal from Sir Mikoshiba!” One of the mercenaries serving under Sara pointed at the trailing red light soaring through the heavens.
“Is everything ready? Do we have enough water?”
“All looks to be in order!”
A horseshoe-shaped dam had been built along the Thebes’ banks, stopping part of the river’s flow. And true to the river’s bountiful reputation, despite it only having been a few hours since the dam was erected, it had accumulated enough water to fill up the trench.
“We’ve more than enough to fill the moat!”
“Good! Then do it!”
“““Yes, ma’am!”””
At Sara’s instructions, the mercenaries began chanting.
“““Spirits governing the earth! Heed our calls and abide by our wills!”””
“You understand, yes? We’re collapsing the ground between the river and the moat! Make sure to measure the distance carefully!”
Sara swung a sword toward the point she asked.
“““Earth Sink!”””
The mercenaries smashed their hands into the ground all at once, and the next moment, the ground shook with a thunderous roar.
The Thebes’ dammed water found an exit and flowed towards the moat, surging with savagery, as if finally unleashing some pent-up wrath...
The first to notice was a commoner attacking the northern side. He was a hunter in profession, and his eyesight and hearing were sharp owing to his daily work.
“Hey!” he spoke to the comrade next to him, despite being in the middle of battle. “Can you hear that?”
The man couldn’t shake the bad premonition that overtook him.
“Idiot, we don’t have time to talk! You’ll get us both killed!” the person, who came from the same village as the hunter, snapped back at him.
Perhaps owing to that connection, he answered him, albeit with a hint of vilification. On the other side of the fence, the knights under Boltz’s command continued showering them with arrows. The hunter must have been quite the reckless one to start talking in this situation.
“Are you sure you didn’t hear something?!”
“What in the blasted hell are you saying?! Out of all the times to get distracted, you pick now?!”
His assertion was correct. Anyone who looks away from the battlefield before them was doomed to die. But the man couldn’t shake off that premonition.
“No, I have a bad feeling about this...”
The man turned his gaze to the direction of that tremor, and then he saw it. A wall of water rushing through the moat, in their direction.
“W-Wateeeeeeeer!” The man screamed.
The wall of water bore down on them, and his scream was a natural one. The tumult of the battlefield died down instantly. No one raised their voice, because the soldiers could all hear the rushing of the water.
And that was because to them, it was the sound of reckoning’s trumpet being blown from the heavens above.
Chapter 3: The Assassin
The filled moat’s waters were littered with floating corpses. The sun had already set, and their surroundings were lit by torches.
“Looks like quite a lot of people drowned...” Ryoma whispered, looking at the corpses floating in the moat.
There was no wavering in his voice. His strategy was successful, and as a direct result, thousands had died. No one would blame Ryoma for becoming a bit sentimental, but his expression was no different than usual.
Whether he truly felt nothing over this, or if he was suppressing his emotions, considering he was a normal high-school student until just a few months ago, made it clear that Ryoma Mikoshiba’s mental fortitude was extraordinary.
“Yes, just as you predicted, there were very few people that knew how to swim,” Laura, who stood behind them, answered.
Water wasn’t such a scary thing in modern Japan. With some exceptions, most people learned how to swim in school, and very few lacked that skill.
But this world was different. With the exception of those who worked in professions relating to water, like fishermen, sailors and ferrymen, the common person in this world didn’t know how to swim. But that made sense in its own way. Even children had to help out in farm work. Having to work for one’s living every day left no time to play. Once one became an adult, what scant amount of free time they once had would be gone.
Among the mercenaries and knights in Ryoma’s service right now, less than fifty people knew how to swim. And having learned of that fact, Ryoma couldn’t pass up the chance to take advantage of it.
“Not being able to remove their raiments was another reason...”
Laura nodded wordlessly at Ryoma’s assertion.
They could let go of their weapons, but it wasn’t easy to take off the leather armor they had on, and so their gear weighed them down, impeding their actions.
“How many are dead?”
“As you’ve ordered, we took no prisoners. They’re all dead, so... this is only an estimate, but just below six thousand.”
The enemy’s total numbers were eight thousand, so that meant six thousand out of that number all drowned to death. Most of them were near the fence, so they couldn’t retreat in time. Kael still had two thousand soldiers left, but continuing the fighting immediately wasn’t quite possible.
“The force attacking from the north was wiped out, and they likely pulled back some of their forces in the center and the south, since they still had some leeway... Oh, and we’ve managed to greatly cut down the number of heavily armored knights.”
Ryoma nodded at Laura’s report. Knights that had learned thaumaturgy and clad themselves in heavy armor were exceedingly powerful in melee combat. Normally, they would have to risk quite a bit of loss to slay knights, but their flooding attack took the majority of them out of the equation, which was a major achievement in and of itself.
“This should make things considerably easier,” Ryoma said with a cold smile.
When he thought to make a bridgehead on the banks of the Thebes, he considered using its abundant waters to cut down the enemy’s numbers. Mikhail’s arbitrary act of insubordination was a major incident, of course, but they were successful in this plan nonetheless.
“All that remains is to await the arrival of Princess Lupis’s reinforcements...”
“Yeah, I know... But they won’t be able to move for a day or two. Still, we’ll need to keep some lookouts, but you can relay that the forces are to rest for now.”
Nodding at Ryoma’s instructions, Laura then walked away.