Episode 57: Assault
"I can see it……"
At dawn, under a gray sky, we finally arrived at our destination.
We passed through a steep mountain path, and the lush greenery that had been threatening to crush us suddenly opened up to reveal a path.
Looking ahead, we could see an old suspension bridge connecting the valley to the other side. That was our final destination.
"We've arrived."
"Yes, we've arrived."
The second-in-command, who helped me carry Armes, replies. He, too, has a bandage on his left arm, which is discolored brown from dried blood. And in this chilly temperature, one could see the greasy sweat on his forehead.
However, the expression on his face showed some relief as I looked around, I could see several soldiers with the same look on their faces. And some of them have tears in their eyes as they wonder if this hardship is finally over.
"......"
But not all of us arrived safely.
As they say, the worse the forecast, the more likely it is to come true, and so far, five people were left behind. All of them had been judged by the medics to have no chance of survival.
"Young master..."
"......It's all right."
A slight tremor, not from injury or fatigue, struck my right hand. Seeing that, the second in command standing next to me raised a concerned voice.
If I'm going to be killed by an enemy, I would rather die at the young master's hands.
All those who were left behind spoke those last words.
And, as a gesture of mercy, though it may not be the same thing, I responded to their wishes and extinguished the light of their lives.
I remember my right hand gripping the sword at their throats and the satisfied looks on the faces of the five men as they died.
The 500 people I had chosen were all direct family members and soldiers. Some of them I had known since I was a child.
"We're going home."
"Ha!"
But I'll get sentimental about it a little later.
I clench my shaking right hand tightly and look up to see the suspension bridge in front of me.
The suspension bridge that connects the canyon is, as far as I can see, unkempt and in shambles, ready to collapse at any moment. It is sometimes agitated by the wind blowing down from the top of the mountain, swaying from side to side. I wondered how the people who were ahead of us were able to cross here.
"Let the seriously injured cross first."
"If two or more men cross this thing, they'll lose their balance and fall down."
"I'll see to it."
"All right, first the doctor, then Armes."
The only exception is Armes, who is unconscious. She is the most seriously injured person here. I want to get her to a safe place as soon as possible so that she can receive proper medical treatment, and if we're not careful...... Switch it up. It's not just about Armes now.
Meanwhile, one or two people carefully cross over to the other side one after another.
If nothing else, the crossing should be completed by noon.
"Eh?"
But I saw it, as though my faint hopes were easily trumped.
......Really, the worse the forecast is, the more it comes true. And it's at the worst possible moment.
The first to react was the second in command standing next to me.
Quickly, he draws the sword on his hip and stands in front of me to protect me.
We both looked at it...... and saw that it was not from the path we had just taken, but from an animal trail just beside it.
"Whose land do you think this is~?"
A woman emerged from the bushes.
Orange hair and black-rimmed glasses. A woman holding a musket smeared with blood, her breasts were big.
"If you know one's escape route, it's easy finding you and tail you from the side, right?"
With that, she pointed the muzzle of her musket at the head of a soldier who was waiting his turn next to a bush and shot him without hesitation.
The sound of dry gunfire and blood splattering on the ground seemed so far away and it felt as if she were just kicking a stone off the side of the road.
And above all, in her eyes, peering at me from behind her blood-stained glasses, I could feel that strange feeling of discomfort that I had recently felt even more strongly.
"Draw your swords!!"
The air is filled with a sense of bewilderment at the sudden appearance of the enemy, and the second in command standing in front of me raises his voice.
The air bursts open, and all the relatively mobile soldiers still waiting on our side stand up and draw their swords.
But...
"Yes, please do it ~"
Faster than that, the woman with glasses quickly raises her right hand.
At the same moment, a number of Imperial soldiers, all covered with white cloth except for their eyes, appear from the bushes one after another, pointing their muskets at us.
"......"
There was not even time to speak.
A moment later, the sound of gunfire erupts.
Then, fresh blood spurts up, and the back of the second in command, who collapses on the spot like a puppet with broken strings, is gently reflected in my field of vision.
"Aaahhh!!"
The illusion that time had been slowed down just for that moment brought me back to reality, due to the sound of the screams from all around me.
"Shit!"
I picked up the sword held by the fallen soldier and threw it at the woman with the glasses, who was smiling wryly.
"Oops, that's dangerous~."
But the woman with the glasses dodged as if she knew I was going to throw the sword at her.
"It seems that you are willing to fight, just as I predicted~, so I guess you are the leader of this unit, right?"
"So what?"
I straighten my posture, pointing the tip of my sword toward the woman with the glasses.
Once one fires a musket, it takes time until one can use it again. Then, when that happened, it will be close combat. Although we are hit first, there were still soldiers who had escaped the gunfire as I had. They, too, saw my fighting stance and began to take up their own positions.
"Ara~, this is unexpected."
"What is?"
The woman with glasses in front of me said with a silly gesture.
"Perhaps you already knew it?"
"......"
Only words without meaning are thrown at me. I have no obligation to respond or answer, so I ignore them and take a step forward.
Then a soldier appeared from behind her, covering all but its eyes with a white cloth. From her behavior, I guessed that the woman in glasses was the commander.
"Hmm~. Even though this is a basic step, are you going to handle this situation? .........Or, rather~."
Somewhat impressed, the woman with the glasses gave me a look as if she were licking my whole body.
And in the next moment, she hit the head of a soldier who had stepped forward with her musket.
"What!?"
Even though musket guns are becoming lighter and lighter not only in our country but in almost all countries, there is no doubt that they are made of iron.
"Frau!!"
There was a soldier who also shouted out in response to her action. It was a woman, judging by the quality of her voice.
"I can't help it, because mole-san is going in front of me~."
"......But I would like you to choose the right time and place."
"Ara~, are you preaching to me about the time and place~? I am an expert in information processing, and you are a mole, okay? It's a funny joke~."
The woman with the glasses, with that creepy smile still on her face, tells the person who has been rebutting her.
"I've just given them unnecessary information, you know. Normally, I would have shot you to death, but I'm still showing you some compassion."
"Still..."
I don't know what's going on, but these guys are just arguing with each other. It seems that they were punished because I found out that the woman with the glasses was their commander. I mean, what's that? The guy who she just knocked down, maybe.......
"Well, I'm not sure if this is something you need to understand, Mole-san."
No, I don't think I have the time right now to go through the effort of compiling all the trivial questions and scrutinizing them.
At any rate, the situation is bad. The fact that they show up here at this time almost certainly means that they are Imperial soldiers, and their numbers indicate that they are a separate unit that moved separately, sniffed out this place, and attacked.
The sudden appearance of the woman with glasses and the gunfire that followed. I had been blinded by these two effects, but the size of the enemy was about the size of a platoon.
But the fact that a separate unit can be sent out even on a platoon scale probably means that our rear unit, led by Elfie, is in dire straits.
Then, what I can do now...
"It's no use."
"...What is?"
"To buy time for the others to catch up, and to assemble a formation for that purpose."
The words that so accurately hit my intentions made me break out in a cold sweat.
She paid attention to my gaze, to my movements, to my instructions to the soldiers behind me, but she saw right through it. What's more, to my dismay, the woman with the glasses has been reading my every move precisely from a moment ago.
"And if each side's main force arrives here, our superiority in numbers will be unassailable, and you have no chance of winning. So there is no need for any futile resistance."
"I don't need you to tell me that."
The woman with glasses said nothing to me and smiled a lurid smile without saying a word.
That's right. As she said, the situation won't get much better if Elfie and the others follow suit.
The one difference, though, is that I never had the slightest intention of trying to outnumber them from the start, even before this retreat began.
The basis of this operation is to get as many of the Kingdom's troops to retreat back to the country alive.
And that objective will be completed when the force led by Elfie arrives at this spot.
The final stage of this long, long expeditionary force of ours, our Kingdom Army, is here.
"I'll tell you one thing as a favor."
"Yes?"
A slight hint of anger appeared on the smiling face of the woman in the glasses. Maybe she's the type who has no patience for harsh words and actions that provoke a top-and-bottom relationship.
"If you're going to surprise us, you should have done it to the following unit, not us. Not to this dead squad."
"Our aim was not to annihilate the enemy troops, but to capture the enemy general, who was valuable enough to be used by the empire. And cutting off the retreat, there is nothing wrong with that."
"Well, that's a good point. So, if we, the kingdom's valuable people, escape from this place, you lose, right?"
"Well, to put it plainly, that's right~, still."
The woman with glasses and a big smile pointed the muzzle of her blood-soaked musket in my direction and said.
"I'm going to let a piece of shit like you die here, though. Well, even if you can do a little, a person who leads a group of wounded people is no better than a pebble on the side of the road~."
The woman in the glasses scoffed, biting her lip, but everyone in the wounded unit here, including me, laughed at her words.
"What's so funny?"
"No, well."
I replied with a shrug, thinking it would be tactless to point out the fact that she had just called me a piece of shit in such a high-handed manner.
"Fu-."
The woman with the glasses seemed to have been offended by my behavior. The creepy smile she had on her face earlier was gone, and the light in her eyes had vanished.
"But I'll tell you, because I'll feel sorry for you if you say you didn't know."
"Yes?"
I tell the woman with glasses in front of me as arrogantly, irreverently, yet proudly as I can.
"I am the parent of the next head of the Fregrance family, one of the five great noble families of the kingdom."
"...Hee."
She probably knows enough about us, the main nobility of the kingdom, not to ask back.
But this is only on the surface.
I may be a parent, but in reality, I'm just a stallion chosen by the process of elimination for the sake of breeding, and I'm just a shitty guy.
But she doesn't know that, as I can guess from the fact that she recognizes me as someone she can kill from the very beginning.
"But it's funny~. There was never anyone in the Fregrance family who could be called the next head of the family. It would have been impossible for them to decide to adopt a child."
"If that's the case, your investigation was sloppy. Well, I guess it can't be helped since it happened so recently."
"I see, I see. Then..."
Then the woman with glasses changed her complexion. Her gaze was different from the trashy one she had been giving me just a moment before. Like a cat that has found its prey, her eyes narrowed, and the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.
"You mean you're a person of some value, right~?"
"Well, that's what it means. What are you going to do?"
I implicitly tell the woman in the glasses, "Can you still kill me?".
"Well, it looks like you got a good bargain for a leftover, doesn't it~?"
"Right?"
"I guess so~."
The woman with the glasses looks a little disgusted at me as I shrug my shoulders and smile, but still, with a face full of disgust, she orders the Imperial soldier standing behind her.
"Change of plans."
"Ha!"
"The goal is to capture that man. He seems to be planning to resist, so it's okay if we take a limb or two off of him♪"
Plz armes don't die😔
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