How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 2

by Dojyomaru

  Tolman was shocked into silence, but after a moment he regained his composure. “...Why is that?” he asked. “I am prepared to serve you to the very end, you realize?”

  “If something happens to me, and then you die, too, who’s gonna lead the Air Force? Besides, I’m concerned for Carl, who I left with Duchess Excel,” Castor said, wearing a somewhat lonely smile as he did. “Duchess Walter has sided with King Souma. Even if something happens to us, I’m sure she’ll have Carl, who I’ve cut ties with, inherit the House of Vargas. But Carl’s still young. Accela can’t handle things all by herself. That’s exactly why I want you there to watch over Carl. You know the House of Vargas well, after all. That’s why... no matter what happens, you have to survive. That’s an order.”

  “...You do give cruel orders,” Tolman said, wearing a bitter smile with a tinge of loneliness. However, he quickly took on a serious expression. Standing with his back straight, his feet together, he saluted. “I have most certainly received your order.”

  “...I’m counting on you.”

  As the master and servant were having this exchange, Castor’s daughter Carla rushed into the room, out of breath.

  “Father! Souma’s forces have appeared!”

  When he heard those words, Castor stood up, full of vigor. “He’s here, huh! So, how big’s this force he’s leading?”

  How many troops Souma had brought would determine whether Castor would be able to show him his pride. Was it 5,000, or 10,000? Castor had hoped for a large force, but Carla’s next words made him doubt his ears.

  —The enemy force was... one ship!

  “...Are you serious?”

  Having come up to the walls to look, Castor saw a battleship advancing across the plains towards them. Red Dragon City was built halfway up a mountain in the middle of the plains. There were no rivers near it that a battleship could traverse. However, that battleship was running along the ground, not along a river or anything else.

  “Father, that looks like the battleship Albert,” Carla said, looking through a telescope.

  “The Albert? What’s that thing doing running across the land?” Castor asked incredulously.

  The battleship Albert. Named for the former king, it was the sole ship held by the Forbidden Army, and also the flagship of the Royal Navy. While its shape was similar to the Mikasa, the flagship of the Combined Fleet at the time of the Battle of Tsushima, instead of being propelled by an internal combustion engine, it was drawn by two sea dragons.

  However, it wasn’t sea dragons that were pulling the Albert now.

  “Ah! Father, look. The Albert is being drawn by rhinosauruses.”

  When Castor took the telescope from Carla to see for himself, he saw that the Albert was being drawn by three of the large, land-dwelling creatures called rhinosauruses.

  When he looked closer, he noticed that the Albert’s keel had been modified. There were what looked like wheels on the sides.

  “They put wheels on it so they could force it to run on land?! After a modification like that, there’s no way it can go back to being a ship! Do they plan to throw away their flagship here?!”

  “It’s not like we had much choice,” said a transmitted voice. “We’ve already got a shortage of manpower.”

  “?!”

  When he turned to look at the sudden voice which had responded to his questioning, he saw Tolman standing there holding a simple Jewel Voice Broadcast receiver. Standing behind Tolman were a number of Castor’s subordinates who had, for some reason, brought a Jewel Voice Broadcast jewel up onto the wall.

  The image of Souma Kazuya was displayed on the simple receiver Tolman was holding. It was too dark to see what was behind him.

  “We just received a letter from King Souma requesting to speak with you by Jewel Voice Broadcast, so we made the necessary preparations,” Tolman explained.

  Hearing this, Castor said, “...I see,” with a nod. “And? Why’s the Albert all this way inland?”

  In response to Castor’s question, Souma just shrugged. “Don’t underestimate the Forbidden Army’s transport capacity. If we use paved roads and rhinosauruses, carrying around a modified battleship is easy.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m asking why you went to the trouble of bringing it all this way.”

  Castor wasn’t asking about how, he wanted to know why.

  Souma told him the answer without any theatrics. “To attack and take Red Dragon City, of course.”

  The next moment...

  Booooooom!

  ...there was a loud noise. Then, only seconds later, there was crunching sound as a great tremor shook the wall. As he stumbled forward due to the tremor, Castor looked around the area.

  “What?! What happened?!”

  “W-We’re taking fire from the Albert! It appears to have landed a direct hit on the walls!”

  “We’re taking fire?! ...Ah! I see! Cannons, huh?”

  Firearms had not developed very far in this world with magic.

  Within the kingdom, only the Army had cannons that were meant to be used inland. However, because all types of magic other than water tended to be weaker at sea, battles on the water were mainly fought by ships firing at each other with artillery. Of course, warships were loaded with large cannons. This was also true of the Forbidden Army’s Albert.

  Souma had brought the Albert out so that he could use its cannons.

  “Since it’s hard work attacking a mountain fortress like Red Dragon City,” Souma explained. “We don’t have much time to spare, either, so I relied on weapons that could attack from long-range.”

  “You’re saying you remodeled the battleship for that?” Castor demanded.

  What will this guy think of next, Castor thought, feeling as if he was watching a stage magician at work.

  If he’d had modern knowledge, he likely would have just thought, All you did was use a battleship like a railway gun. (Which were weapons made by loading the usually large and difficult to transport cannons on a train, making it possible to move them long distances.) However, for the people of this world where there was not yet any concept of a railway gun, Souma’s idea was enough of a shock on its own.

  Castor stood dumbfounded for a moment, but soon began to laugh out loud. “Ha ha ha, not bad! I never thought I’d see a ship running across land!”

  “You like showy tricks like this, don’t you?” Souma asked, to which Castor nodded.

  “I think I’m in love. You may just become one hell of a king.”

  “It’s not too late for you to surrender. It’d make this easier, you know?” Souma said, but Castor shook his head in silence.

  “Sadly... I can’t do that. I can’t do something as pathetic as folding this late in the game. Now that it’s come to this, let me be the wall that stands in your way. If you have what it takes to be king, climb over me.”

  Seeing Castor brimming with the will to fight, Souma narrowed his eyes. “...That is truly regrettable, Castor.”

  Booooooom! ...Bang!

  Another shot was fired into Red Dragon City’s walls.

  Castor turned to Carla and ordered her, “Carla, lead the wyvern cavalry out and raise some hell over on that battleship.”

  When she received that order, Carla’s eyes went wide with surprise. “I’m going to lead them? What are you going to do, Father?”

  “I’ll stay here and watch your battle. Since, no matter what, one of us has to stay behind. Now go out there and shut those cannons up.”

  “...Understood!”

  Carla rushed over to the wyvern stables. After watching Carla depart, Castor turned to speak to Souma over the simple receiver.

  “My daughter is coming for you. Prepare to meet your maker.”

  “I suggest you do the same,” Souma replied.

  The two men glared at one another.

  Thus began the battle for Red Dragon City.

  ◇　◇　◇

  The wyvern cavalry under Carla flew up into
the sky with coordinated movements.

  Carla, being a dragonewt, could fly by herself, but she usually flew on the back of a wyvern so that she could focus entirely on the battle. They would use wind magic to rise up to an altitude cannons couldn’t reach, and then, after getting into formation, they would perform a diving attack. When they finished forming up, and just as Carla was about to give the order to attack, one of the wyvern cavalry came over to her.

  “My Lady, please, wait a moment.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Something’s strange here. We’ve risen to this high of an altitude, but I don’t see any sign of reinforcements behind them. It looks like the Albert really is the entire enemy force.”

  As she responded to the wyvern knight, who had a dubious look on his face, Carla tilted her head to the side in puzzlement. “Haven’t we already received reports to that effect?”

  “Yes,” he said. “However, I think they may be hiding somewhere, or they might have troops standing by in a separate location. My Lady, do you think it’s possible to take a castle with only a siege weapons unit?”

  Carla considered the question. “...No, it’s not. Even if they’re able to attack the castle, they lack the power to occupy it and then maintain that occupation. If they want to hold the castle, they’ll need a unit of infantry in addition to the siege weapons unit.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “However, I see no sign of the enemy having those forces.”

  “So, basically... what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. However, do you think the enemy might still have something up their sleeve?”

  Carla thought deeply for a moment before shaking her head. “Even if they do, it changes nothing. Right now, Red Dragon Castle is being exposed to cannon fire. In order to ensure Father’s safety, we must destroy that battleship.”

  “Well... Yes, I suppose that’s true...” The wyvern knight could see that, too, so he backed down quietly.

  Carla raised her right hand up high. “The target of our attack is the battleship Albert! King Souma is a target for capture! Let that king bear witness to the bravery of House Vargas!”

  “““Yeahhhhhhhhhh!””” Hearing Carla’s orders, the muscular men of the Air Force raised their voices in a cheer.

  Compared to the other forces, the members of the Air Force tended to value power for its own sake. In the Air Force, might made right. Might was an absolute. They could leave the thinking and calculating to the other forces.

  Those in the Air Force needed only to be strong, and to be ready at all times to tear apart the enemies before them. That was why the soldiers of the Air Force had such a deep respect for Castor and Carla, with their overwhelming power.

  “Wyvern cavalry, here are your orders! Descend, charge, then trample the enemy!” she called.

  When Carla, who they deeply respected, brought down her hand, the soldiers of the Air Force began their rapid descent towards the Albert.

  The ultimate strategy for fighting with wyvern cavalry on an open field was to descend rapidly while unleashing the wyvern’s fire breath to scorch the ground, and then to turn and ascend once more. By the time the soldiers on the ground had readied their bows, the wyverns would already be long gone. With the equipment used to fight land-based opponents, there was little that could be done to counteract this high-power, high-mobility attack.

  Not even the Albert’s main cannon would be able to track them at the speed they went, and its armor wouldn’t last long in the face of an attack by a wyvern unit.

  It seemed like only a matter of time before the Albert would fall, but...

  Twang, twang, twang, twang, twang...

  In the next moment, countless objects flew towards the descending knights from the direction of the Albert. By the time they realized they were arrows as thick as stakes, the wyvern cavalry were already caught in the rain of arrows.

  “Wha?! Arrows?!”

  “Gwah...!”

  “Th-They got my wings! I’m going down!”

  “Evade! Evaaaade!”

  In this barrage of arrows that seemed to rain up from the ground, the wyvern cavalry were forced to turn back and ascend. A number of wyvern cavalry had been shot down in that barrage alone.

  The attack had come from below, so most of the damage had been done to the wyverns rather than the knights. Even among the wyverns that managed to withdraw safely, many were staggering in pain with bolts having struck them somewhere.

  As she looked at this debacle, Carla punched her thigh in anger. “What was with those bolts?! How were there so many?!”

  “If they can reach a wyvern unit several hundred meters in the air, those arrows weren’t fired by any human,” one of her knights responded. “If we consider the number, too... most likely, it was an anti-air repeating bolt thrower enchanted with wind magic.”

  Hearing that report from her wyvern cavalry, Carla’s brow furrowed in concern. “An anti-air repeating bolt thrower?! Why is one of those loaded on a boat?!”

  “Most likely... they loaded one from a castle’s wall onto the ship.”

  The anti-air repeating bolt thrower was enchanted with wind magic to drastically increase its range and allow it to fire tens of bolts per second. It was a weapon specially created to combat wyverns. Normally they were mounted on castle walls, and it was unheard of for them to be loaded on ships.

  This was because one of the differences between dragons and wyverns was that, while dragons didn’t fear the sea, wyverns did. When wyverns were out far enough to sea that they could no longer see land, they grew frightened and would thrash around to the point that they became completely uncontrollable. In other words, wyverns almost never fought battleships, so ships had no need to carry anti-wyvern equipment.

  Because of that, Carla and her wyvern cavalry had forgotten their natural enemy, the anti-air repeating bolt thrower, until this very moment.

  Carla punched her thigh in anger once more. “Damn! He outwitted us by taking advantage of our expectations...”

  When she thought back, from the moment this battle had begun, their understanding of how things worked had been falling to pieces. There was a ship running across the land, loaded with weapons it wouldn’t usually have. Because they had tried to resort to their common sense, the enemy had been able to toy with them.

  I don’t know if this was that king’s scheme, or if the Prime Minister in Black came up with it, but whichever of them it was, he’s downright nasty, Carla thought to herself bitterly.

  In fact, this plan had been a collaborative work by Souma and Hakuya. Souma had proposed ideas to Hakuya based on weapons and tactics from his world, while Hakuya had formulated them into a plan that would catch the enemy by surprise. If anyone was nasty, it was both of them.

  However, that mattered little to Carla at the moment.

  The wyvern knight told her, “If they’ve got an anti-air repeating bolt thrower on board, that battleship is a little castle in its own right. This is dangerous.”

  Hearing one of the wyvern knights under her analyze the situation, Carla clicked her tongue. “Damn...! What do we do?”

  “Well... It may be like a little castle now, but it is still shaped like a battleship, so I suspect it may still have the same blind spots.”

  “Where are a battleship’s blind spots?” Carla asked.

  “The area between the water’s surface and the deck. A battleship has no means of attacking enemies lower than its deck. For the Albert, the area from the ground to its deck should be a blind spot for it. In short, if we’re going to attack that ship...”

  “...we just have to fly in really low on the approach!” Carla said with glee, pleased to have found a good strategy.

  Ordinarily, minimum altitude flight with wyverns was dangerous. It could result in crashing into the ground at any moment. However, they were a seasoned unit from the Air Force.

  “You heard that!” Carla called. “All knights, fly at low altitude and approach the Albert.
Move quickly to neutralize all weapons, including the main cannon and anti-air repeating bolt throwers!”

  “Roger that, but only the weapons? Wouldn’t it be faster to crush the bridge?” one wyvern knight asked, but Carla shook her head silently in response.

  “We believe Souma is on that battleship. If Souma is there, Liscia may be close at hand. If we attack the bridge and Liscia gets hurt, that will be unacceptable. Therefore, we just need to neutralize their weapons. Take Souma alive.”

  Even as she gave those orders to her subordinates, Carla herself felt differently. Besides, if we kill Souma, I’m sure Liscia would be sad.

  Carla had been watching from behind Castor while Souma had delivered his ultimatum. Of course she had seen everything, including Liscia cutting her hair.

  Castor might have been moved by Liscia’s determination, but as her friend, and as a woman herself, Carla had been moved even more powerfully. Liscia had been so determined to live at Souma’s side that she had been able to cut off her beautiful hair without hesitation.

  The engagement had been forced on her by her parents at first. That was why Carla had been so angry, and she had chosen to stay with her father when he’d opposed the king, saying she was going to save Liscia. ...However, after being shown that level of determination, she had no choice but to accept it. Liscia already loved Souma from the depths of her heart.

  If I were really thinking of Liscia, I should have tried to persuade Father, Carla thought. Then, rather than opposing them, I should have served under them, I’m sure... Well, it’s a little late for regrets now.

  How was she supposed to face Liscia now?

  Carla shook her head, as if to shake herself free from those feelings, then bowed to the knights following her. “I know I’ll be putting you all through unnecessary trouble, but I’m counting on you.”

  When Carla bowed, the men all pounded their chests once. “Leave it to us, My Lady.”

  “We swear we’ll capture Souma for you!”