by Dojyomaru
“Our left and right wings, which is to say the units under Liscia and Glaive, don’t look like they’re moving that much,” I said. “If they were a bit more proactive about encircling them, don’t you think they could wipe them out?”
“...If you think that, why not send a messenger on a fast horse with that order?” asked Carla.
With the tone she used, it was like she was asking “Is that your final answer?” It made me stop to think about it a little. However, I couldn’t come to any conclusions.
“...I don’t know,” I said. “My knowledge of war is purely theoretical, so Liscia should know far more about commanding troops than I do. Rather than open my mouth when I shouldn’t, I’d better leave the decision-making to those in the field.”
Carla laughed a little. “Ha ha ha. That’s probably a good idea.”
It looked like that was the right answer.
“Carla, do you know the reason?” I asked. “Care to fill me in?”
“It’s the number of troops the enemy has,” she said.
“The number of troops?”
Carla pointed towards the battlefield. “I only know what I’ve heard from listening in, but those are the 30,000 troops that laid siege to Altomura, right? They were ambushed while they were withdrawing, too.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“It doesn’t look like their numbers have decreased that much, considering all that’s happened.”
“Hm? Now that you mention it...”
With such a large force, it was hard to tell anything at a glance, but they looked to be about half the size of our own force, which had 55,000 troops. I guessed they had around 25,000 troops.
It was true that, considering that they’d been ambushed by Juna’s marines in Goldoa Valley, it didn’t look like they had taken many losses.
“Did the ambush not achieve anything?” I wondered.
“No, from what I see on the battlefield, there are varying levels of morale in the different units of the principality’s army. They likely made up the troops they lost to the ambush by taking in conscripts from cities along their route here. That would be why some of them appear to have low morale.”
“I see...”
Countries in this world generally had standing armies.
In a world where there are giant animals that, from a person back on Earth’s perspective, might as well be monsters running rampant, it was necessary to have troops that could be mobilized at any time. In Elfrieden, the Army, Navy, Air Force and the troops that were under my direct control in the Forbidden Army were standing troops. Of course, in times of need, levies could be raised from the common people. In our case, most of the personal armies of nobles other than the three dukes were made up of levied troops.
After the war, I planned to create a unified army which would incorporate the various nobles’ forces as well, but I intended to release the people from military service and have them return to their towns. Right now, raising productivity was a more urgent concern than a decline in military power.
Naturally, the army the principality used to invade us would also be made up of a combination of standing troops and levied troops. They must have raised all the levies they could by now.
So, after the ambush, the levies they’d raised must have come from those they couldn’t have conscripted before.
For instance, they might be the elderly, the feeble, or even adventurers who had happened to be in their domain. (The adventurers’ guild offered a contract that allowed countries to conscript all adventurers who were in their territory in a time of crisis. In return, the country needed to pay a fixed sum to the guild every month, so I had already terminated that contract.)
Carla was pointing out that they couldn’t have high morale if that was the case.
“If you leave people like that alone, they’ll eventually break on their own,” she said. “On the other hand, if you encircled them, it would risk causing them to unite as one. That’s why both Liscia and Glaive are waiting for them to break ranks and flee.”
“I see,” I said. “So I was right to let my field commanders make the decision.”
I realized that, in a situation like this, rather than pretending to know what I was doing and making pronouncements from on high, it was better to trust the people in the field and leave it to them. I had capable people out there, after all.
“I’m just a figurehead, so I should stay back in the main camp, twiddling my thumbs,” I said.
“I think that’s a problem in its own way...” said Carla. “You are the king, aren’t you?”
“There’s only work for a king before and after the war,” I said. “Other than that, well... If it comes to it, maybe I can offer up my own head and beg them to spare the lives of my troops and commanders.”
When I said that, Carla’s eyes went wide. She looked at me as if she was seeing something completely unbelievable.
Huh? Why was she looking at me like that?
“Did I say something strange?” I asked.
“You... Aren’t you afraid to die?” Carla demanded.
What was she talking about?
“Of course I’m scared to die. I’m not suicidal.”
“Still, just now, you said you’d offer your head up if it came to that, didn’t you?” she asked. “Have you already accepted that?”
“Huh? Ah... I guess I did. That’s weird...”
Carla was right. Now that she mentioned it... it was weird.
Why had I said I’d offer my head up like it was completely natural?
I knew it was something expected of a king. Power was concentrated in my hands as the representative of this country, so I had to bear just as much responsibility. That was what it meant to be king.
But why did it feel “natural” for me to do it?
I mean, I’d always been... a bit of a coward, hadn’t I? I valued my life, didn’t I? I’d taken the throne and worked so hard at internal affairs in order to avoid being handed over to the Empire, hadn’t I?
—When had I stopped holding my life dear?
Carla looked at me anxiously. “A-Are you all right? Are you feeling unwell?”
I was silent.
Unwell... that’s not quite right. Broken...
There was something broken about me as a person.
Yeah. That made a strange amount of sense.
Only now that it had been pointed out did I notice that my current mental state was messed up.
I felt that I had been taking life too lightly. My own life, and the lives of others.
That was how I was able to do simple arithmetic with people’s lives. I had been subtracting the lives saved from the lives lost, and choosing any option where the sum was a positive number.
As if I were a system that handled that sort of computation.
That was when the words I’d once said to Liscia crossed my mind.
“Even if I don’t want to do it, I have to. Because I’m the king now.”
Oh... I see. So that’s how it is...
“At some point, I became a king...” I murmured.
“What’s this all of a sudden? You’ve been a king all this time.”
Carla didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, but it made sense to me now.
“I was just going along with events as they happened,” I said. “At some point... without noticing it myself, I began to act as a system of the state which we call a ‘king.’ ...By telling myself it was part of my programming, I became able to always choose the ‘best’ option.”
“System? Programming? Hey, what are you even talking about?!” Carla shouted.
All I could do was give a self-deprecating laugh. “Carla, I may be a ‘fake.’”
“Wha?!”
“After all... If I can’t get into the role of king, I can’t send soldiers off to the battlefield,” I said.
I was a coward. I didn’t want to be hurt or killed myself. I didn’t want to see others hurt or killed, either.
By telling myself this was what a king did, I had been able to suppress my own will and do what needed to be done. If I hadn’t... I felt like I’d have been crushed under the weight of all the lives that might be lost because of my decisions. When I saw how far I had taken that, I could only laugh scornfully at myself.
“Man... I can’t laugh at the former king now, huh,” I said. “If I had a viable replacement, I’d want to give up right now.”
“...What good can come from letting me hear you in a moment of weakness like this?” she asked incredulously.
“You’ve got it backwards,” I said. “Do you think I could let Liscia and the others hear me talk like this?”
For Liscia, who’d told me she wanted me to be king; for Aisha, who served me as king; and for Juna, Hakuya, Poncho, Tomoe, and all the rest, I could never let them hear me like this. Especially since Liscia, being the serious person she was, seemed to feel responsible for the fact that her father had pushed the throne onto me.
“Because you’ve fought against me, I’m able to let you hear,” I said.
“...That doesn’t make me happy at all.”
Then it happened. It happened as we were talking. I noticed there had been a change on the battlefield.
◇ ◇ ◇
On that battlefield, where a pitched battle was still being fought, the principality’s army suddenly began to crumble.
Members of the force that had fought hard to resist the attacks of the numerically-superior army of the kingdom up until this point began to flee. The first to run were those who had been hurriedly pressed into service in the time between when the force had left Goldoa Valley and their arrival at the plains.
The Principality of Amidonia had mandatory military service for all men once they reached a certain age, so they were combat trained, but these were people who ordinarily lived as civilians. If they were suddenly sent into a disadvantageous battle, their morale wasn’t going to be great.
Eventually, soldiers started fleeing towards the southern side where the encirclement wasn’t yet complete.
The Amidonians cut down fleeing soldiers in an attempt to keep the others fighting, but there were close to 10,000 of these levied troops, so it was little help.
However, the more of them that tried to flee, the more their lines were thrown into disorder, and that ended up disturbing their ability to function as a unit. Elfrieden did not miss this chance to attack.
“Hal, it’s time, you know!” Kaede shouted.
“I’ve been waiting for this!” he called back. “Let go get ’em, you louts!”
“““Yeahhhhh!”””
In the left wing of the kingdom’s army, Halbert charged forward with his troops to complete their encirclement of the enemy. In this battle, Halbert was leading somewhere between ten to twenty men from the Army and fighting as a platoon commander under Kaede’s command. He rode no horse, spinning his two halberds around and knocking his confused enemies flying. The Amidonian general noticed what was happening and shouted from up on horseback. “Don’t let them encircle us! Use indirect fire to stop the enemy’s left wing!”
In the next moment, a hail of arrows and magic flew from the principality’s army towards Halbert and his unit.
“Earth Wall!” Kaede shouted.
This summoned a wall of earth that was nearly one hundred meters long and three meters high which narrowly saved Halbert’s unit.
That must have surprised the forces of the principality. There couldn’t have been more than five mages on the entire continent who could conjure such an impressive wall of earth in an instant. Kaede may have had a timid personality, but she was a genius when it came to her quick thinking and earth magic.
Halbert pressed his back up against the wall of earth for cover, then gave an order to his men who were doing the same. “We can’t let Kaede hog all the glory! We’re going for some payback!”
“““Yeah!”””
This time it was Halbert and his platoon firing arrows and magic over the earth wall at the principality’s army. Halbert threw one of the fire spears he had shown off in the battle near Randel against the Zemish mercenaries.
The principality’s forces were on an attack footing, so they were unable to prepare themselves in time. They were shot full of arrows or scorched, and their formation was thrown into chaos.
Seeing this chance, Halbert leapt out. “Now’s our chance, while they’re in disarray! Charge in!”
Meanwhile, in the disorderly chaos of the principality’s forces, their general was trying to restore calm. “Men, don’t fall into disarray! If we break ranks, we’ll give the enemy exactly what they want!”
He frantically tried to encourage his troops, but the chaos showed no signs of abating. Growing impatient, the general rode up to one of his panicking soldiers and suddenly lopped the man’s head off.
“Shut up! If you’ll not calm yourselves, I’ll behead you like I did this fool!” he bellowed.
“No, you shut up,” a voice said.
“What?!” the general shouted.
By the time the general noticed him, it was already too late. Halbert was in front of him with his arms crossed.
When Halbert uncrossed his arms, the blades of his two halberds acted like a pair of scissors, catching the general’s torso and cutting him into pieces.
The upper torso of the now ex-general thudded to the ground.
The sight of blood spurting from the still-standing, headless horse and the now torso-less rider in its saddle robbed the soldiers of their will to fight in an instant.
Halbert flicked the clotted blood away from his two halberds with a flash, and then he roared, “Forbidden Army Officer Halbert Magna has slain an enemy general! Now, which of you wants to die next?!”
With blood dripping from the halberds in each of his hands, he must have looked like some horrific monster.
Today, Halbert was fired up to compete with Souma and Kaede, who were both around the same age as him. Souma had assembled this massive army, while Kaede was supporting Ludwin with her strategic ingenuity.
I’m not gonna let them get any further ahead of me! That was the feeling that drove Halbert now.
When they saw Halbert with such intensity, the Amidonian soldiers reacted as if they’d run into an ogre in the darkness. They scrambled to retreat, thinking, There’s no way we can fight that thing!
One soldier of the principality, who saw Halbert at this time and narrowly survived the battle, later told the story like this:
“Back then, I was sure I would die. He was still a young man, but even fierce, veteran warriors didn’t want to face him. When I later heard that was ‘Hal the Red Ogre,’ it made a strange amount of sense. Honestly... I’m amazed I survived...”
It would be fair to say that for “Hal the Red Ogre,” who would in later years be used in stories as a representative of Souma’s followers, his legend began with this battle.
His style of standing at the front, leading his subordinates forward in a charge, would remain unchanged even when he was given command of a full army. Souma would warn him time and again that it wasn’t how a leader should behave, but Halbert would say, “This way suits me better,” and never listen.
In fact, because he would always manage to survive, and to get results, Souma wouldn’t be able to say anything more than that. It would end up causing Kaede a great deal of worry, but that is a story for another time.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Hahhhhhhhhh!”
Meanwhile, in the right wing of the kingdom’s army, Liscia let out a battle cry.
While acting as the commander of the right wing, she also rode around on horseback herself, moving up quite close to the front line.
Each time Liscia thrust her rapier out towards the enemy, blades of ice formed in the air and tore apart the Amidonian soldiers. Her form as she did so made her
look like a valkyrie. It even had a certain beauty.
But on the other hand, Liscia seemed to be acting in haste, as if the blood had rushed to her head. She gave the impression of having lost her calm.
Of course, if she stood out so much, the enemy were going to target her.
“Don’t falter! Surround her and take her head!” an enemy unit commander ordered.
Enemy soldiers swarmed towards Liscia.
No matter how incredibly brave Liscia was, she was at a numerical disadvantage. If she let herself be surrounded by spearmen, she wouldn’t be able to break away using the horse’s superior mobility.
The enemy’s spears closed in on Liscia. Then, “Princess! Why, yoooou! Get away from her!”
Arriving just in the nick of time, Aisha knocked away the enemy soldiers swarming around her with a full swing of her great sword.
Aisha had been assigned to guard Liscia, but her great sword wasn’t meant to be swung around on horseback, and she had fallen behind because she was on foot.
Once Aisha had wiped out the nearby enemies with a slash of her great sword and a blast of wind, she ran up beside Liscia’s horse with tears in her eyes.
“Princess, please, don’t be so recklesssssss!”
“...Sorry,” Liscia said. “I lost my head there.”
Seeing Aisha’s pleading, tearful eyes brought Liscia to her senses. She put her hand on Aisha’s head, which was at thigh-level for her because she was on a horse.
“But I have to be a little reckless,” Liscia said. “Because... I want to end this war quickly.”
“Princess?” Aisha tilted her head to the side, confused by the worried look on Liscia’s face.
While the forces of the principality were showing some stubbornness, the battle was going in Elfrieden’s favor. Soldiers were already starting to flee from the Amidonian side, so if the kingdom’s forces slowly encircled them, it wouldn’t be long before they emerged victorious. There was no need to rush that victory.
However, Liscia turned to Aisha with a pained look on her face. “Hey, Aisha. What do you think of the way Souma’s been lately?”