Episode 39: A Serious War
Jubelia Castle in the Imperial territory had burned down. Against the sunlight shining in from the other side of the castle, black smoke rises slowly. The smoke is not as thick as it was last night, but rather smoldering, as though to express the feelings of the fallen soldiers of the kingdom.
At dawn, a line of wagons escorted by hundreds of soldiers was about to depart from Gruve City.
"You're coming after us, right?"
It was Lady Ritia, the daughter of the Fregrance family, who, instead of the shiny and luxurious carriage that ignored mobility...... behind the line, peeked out of the window of the battered carriage and said worriedly.
I had them ride in a shabby carriage so that they will not be the first to be targeted in case they were attacked by bandits or an enemy. She wore the same clothes as a simple village girl, and her blond hair, which usually shines brightly in the morning sun, is kept out of sight by wearing a hood that covers her eyes.
......The reason for the dark circles around her eyes is not something I would dare to mention here.
"Don't worry, I'll catch up later."
"Really?"
"Really."
How many times have we had this exchange? Ever since the carriage was about to leave town earlier this morning, She's been asking, "You're coming, right?" and "You'll come soon, right?" The same thing was being asked over and over again, and I would soothe her every time.
"Hey, one more time."
"...This is the last time"
That, and the begging for a kiss. I am happy about it, but I have to be sneaky and kiss her when no one is looking, which is a little troublesome.
"Nhh, chu."
"...Hora, is this enough?"
When I asked, the young lady just nodded silently and looked at me without saying anything in particular, which was the standard exchange between us until a moment ago.
"It's a promise, right?"
But in this last one, she took my hand and appealed to me with anxious eyes.
"I understand. It's a promise."
I take the young lady's hand back and lean a little forward to take her lips.
When I pull my face away from hers, I can see her surprised face, blushing, and I can't help but smile. Apparently, it's not good to do things out of the blue.
"I'm going home. Besides, I haven't seen my child yet, so I can't die, can I?"
"......You were sulking last night."
"You promised not to say that!?"
"...Young master"
My shout is met with brief words. I turn around to see Elfie standing behind me, who had somehow finished her preparations and returned, with Armes, the young lady's escort, standing next to her.
Feeling uncomfortable with their gaze, I turn to face them again, clearing my throat.
"Armes, take care of Ojousama."
"……Yes."
"......Hey, don't look at me like that. You're the only one I can trust with this."
"But Nii-san..."
In fact, when I ordered Armes to escort the young lady, she defied, which was rare. She said in an unprecedentedly strong tone of voice that she did not want to be an escort, as she wanted to fight by her step-brother's side.
In the end, Elfie got angry with her and reluctantly accepted it.
"I'll be fine. I have Elfie with me, and if things get bad, I'll run away right away. So don't worry, okay?"
"……Got it."
She still seems unconvinced, and with a disgruntled expression on her face, Armes reluctantly backs away.
In fact, I would have been more grateful if Armes had been with me, but there are only two people I can entrust with escorting the young lady. Elfie and Armes.
As we were having this exchange, one of the soldiers said, "It's time to go". I looked at Elfie, and at her command, the line of wagons began to move, slowly going out of the city.
"Then I'll leave the rest to you."
Finally, the carriage in which the young lady is riding is about to pass through the gate, and Glass, her maid by her side, has forcibly pulled Lady Ritia, who is about to lean out of the window, to accommodate her inside.
Glass also had dark circles around her eyes, as though she too had spent the night sleepless due to tension and anxiety.
"(......Who's fault it is, who?)"
"Hmm? Did you say something?"
"No, nothing. Then I wish you good luck."
"Y-yeah..."
With that, Glass pulls back into the carriage and the window closes with a slam.
The wooden wheels rattled and shook wildly, occasionally creaking themselves, until the last line of carriages carrying the young lady disappeared completely outside the city.
And so, that was what happened this morning, and now, a few hours later, in the early afternoon.
The city of Gruve, where we, the kingdom army, are holed up, and the Imperial Army, which attacked a few hours after the young lady's departure, are now at a slight distance from each other.
The trouble here, however, was the surprisingly large number of enemies who had surrounded us. They were not in the thousands, but rather in the tens of thousands. It was a little unexpected that such a large army could be assembled in just one night.
I thought that since they were aiming for a night attack to turn the tables on us, they might not have had the time to spare, and I expected that no matter how hard they tried, they would only be able to gather a few thousand to ten thousand soldiers, but the numbers were still too large.
"...According to the scouts, the enemy number is about 35,000."
Elfie, standing by my side, mutters in my ear.
"No, it's still okay. I'll give them the signal when they start to attack us. It's not like we have to go out and fight them, right?"
"Then so be it."
"Yeah."
Standing at a wall-like structure that surrounds the city of Gruve, I look down at the outside of the city once again. Below me are countless herds of people and horses.
Unlike the kingdom, I feel that the uniformed silver armors have the power to awe the enemy if all the armies are gathered.
In contrast, we are an army of only a few thousand. The enemy may think that we are foolish defeated soldiers who throw ourselves into a battle that has no chance of victory.
That is why there is an opportunity for us to take advantage of it.
"But you are well familiar with such a plan."
"It was in a book that I pulled out from the warehouse in the mansion before I joined this expedition."
I hand her an old military history book that I had in my possession to the interested Elfie. The plan was to execute what was in the manuscript of the military history book, which had been written down by a military strategist, a general staff officer, or some other great man from long ago.
"The question is how much time I can buy. If they find out, we'll have to abandon this place immediately......"
"That's all right, young master. If it comes to it, I will join the army."
"That's very encouraging."
Apparently, our family's proud old knight is still going strong today.
While we were talking, the imperial troops began to spread out to the left and right, as though they had finished eating lunch or having a smoke.
"......It's about time. They're coming, and this time it won't be like yesterday."
The imperial army moving slowly. As each of the units finished deploying, I could see that the fearless-looking enemy generals had all turned their attention toward us.
Elfie, the junior officers at her side, and everyone else present sensed that, and silence fell over the area.
As if to break the silence, the battle began with a volley of fire by the Imperial musketeers.
"Get down!"
I crouched down along the city wall, or rather the wall that surrounds the city of Gruve, and immediately afterward, a bullet shot passed over my head. Soldiers who were even slightly late in getting down were hit by the bullets and slid down the wall, struggling.
"Charge!"
In the midst of that brief stasis, an enemy knight cries out as he flips himself on his horse, and a large army rushes in at once in columns.
"Let loose too!"
With Elfie's call, musketeers repeatedly return fire, shooting the oncoming enemy.
The Imperial troops, however, do not give a damn and overrun their fallen comrades to reach the walls and gates surrounding the city, where they hurl catapults of distorted shapes that seem to have been reconfigured specifically for destroying gates.
On the other hand, we also successfully lured the enemy's movement into a pit we had set up the day before, and as soon as the catapult fell into the pit, we threw a vial of oil into it, and we shot a fire arrow at them.
A roaring explosion and a rising column of fire. Not missing the enemy's panicked movements, we open the gates, and the force of 500 soldiers brought from my parents' house, led by Elfie, distracts the enemy.
"ーーーー !?"
A group of red mounted warriors crosses the large silver army. Even as they are crossing, Elfie quickly strikes down the enemy with the spear she is carrying. The tip of her spear slices off the head of a man on horseback, and when they saw the body, which has lost its strength, fall to the ground, it is clear even from here that the enemy soldiers are shaken.
However, the entire force did not stop just because we had killed one commander. In fact, the attack, which was aimed precisely at the commander, made Elfie and her men stand out from the crowd.
The imperial troops rushed in to say that they were fools who had jumped into the vortex so recklessly.
Besides, Elfie's team pretended to be flustered and hurried back into the city. And, not wanting to let them get away, hundreds of enemy cavalrymen follow them into the city.
But that's our plan, too.
"Fire!!"
Once they enter the city, that's the end. The Imperial cavalry that had ridden recklessly into the city fell to the fire of the musket squads that had formed in front of the gate, and they fell in an interesting manner.
Some knights escaped and tried to flee out of the city, but the city gates were already closed, and the knights who lost their way were driven out by Elfie's team who turned back and attacked.
Favorable fights can be seen in other places such as the west gate, the east gate, and the middle gate, and I quickly unfolded a golden fan borrowed from an officer at my side and lifted it high in the air on the spot.
"Sound the trumpet! Beat the drums! Raise your voices! Tell the enemy outside the city that we have won the first battle!!!"
All at once, a victory cry erupted from the city of Gruve at my cry.
When fighting a siege, or rather, when fighting an enemy in a holed-up position, the morale of your allies is the most important weapon.
Whether it's the beginning of a battle or a skirmish, it's my job to boldly raise my voice and continue to inspire my allies when we win.
But the Imperial soldiers, not content to let that happen, fired sporadically at us and waited.
Just when I thought it was too late. A bullet shot rushed past my ear with a sound like the wind cutting through the air.
No, wait a minute. A bullet just passed by my side! Why are you aiming at me with such high accuracy? It's too dangerous and that's not what I needed right now!?
"Young master."
"No, it's all right. It just passed by."
Despite my words, my heart was racing back and forth. No, it was really close, and I was scared. I remembered his face... he's just a bean sprout.
With such an incident, battles continued to be fought in various places, and the sun was gradually tilting.
One of the knights holding up a white flag, indicating that it was a messenger, unexpectedly emerged from the opposing imperial army. It is still too early to end the battle, but what in the world is going on?
To begin with, the knight's appearance is different from the others and naturally attracted the eye more than the white flag.
He is dressed in white and wears a white mask that covers his face except for his eyes. The design on his back is a black cloth with a large white rose on it.
"We are the Knights of the White Rose, a unit under the direct command of Her Majesty the Queen. Who is the captain of this garrison!"
Although we cannot completely tell from the appearance, she is probably a female knight, judging from the quality of her voice. Her voice is high and resonant, like that of a boy who has not yet reached puberty, and yet there is a certain amount of age in her voice......Well, I don't know if it's literally a boy who hasn't reached puberty.
While all the soldiers on my side are sitting and hiding, leaning against the walls, I appear in front of the knight.
"I am the captain of the Kingdom Army's Gruve City garrison. What do you want?"
When I shouted, the female knight (temporary), who called herself "White Rose," pulled out her sword and proudly held it up.
"We, the Imperial Army, have already destroyed your Kingdom's Army! Knowing that further resistance will be futile, surrender at once!"
With that said, with eyes peeking through the white mask, she looked straight at me.
It seems that they had grown tired of pushing us with force, and appeared as a messenger to demand our surrender. I know you already know my answer, but thank you for going to the trouble.
"I refuse!"
Perhaps I worded it a little badly, but my curt reply upset not only my enemies but also my allies.
But only the knight in front of me, the knight of the white rose, kept her eyes fixed on me and raised her voice again.
"If you refuse, we will attack you immediately and pressure you just like the previous one! Are you okay with that?"
Without waiting for my response, something was dragged from behind the masked female knight and thrown carelessly toward us.
Rolling around was a headless corpse and the head of a man.
"Young master."
"I know. It's General Be'mond, isn't it?"
Elfie, who had just finished clearing out most of the enemies who had entered the city and was now on top of the wall, overheard it. I don't care what you do, but you're bathing with too much blood.
I slowly lowered my gaze to the ground and stared at General Be'mond's head, which is lying there carelessly.
It is a common practice, regardless of either side, to present the head of a defeated general to a holed-up enemy in order to weaken their will to fight. The success rate is not very high, and if anything, it is a kind of beauty in sieging.
Nevertheless, some of the soldiers from the other noble families, who had been ordered to stay behind to make up the numbers, were upset.
They had heard that General Be'mond had been killed, but they were intimidated by what they saw, and flinched back a step, as far as they could go without being noticed.
"Don't be dismayed."
"...H-ha!"
Elfie quietly told them so. The old knight's words, which are low and filled with a horrifying deadly intent, naturally straighten the backs of the soldiers present.
"As expected of you."
"This is no big deal."
Fear and anxiety should be suppressed with dignity, or the general should act merrily as if they were nothing more than ants. And it was she, of all people, who taught me that. Her gaze was not on me, but on the Imperial troops below.
"Well, that's why I refuse again! Because we've decided we're going to fight our way through here until the last man!"
Declaring so high-handedly, the knight of the white rose stared at me for a while and then silently turned back to her own camp.
......I don't care, but my allies are more scared of my declaration than my enemies.
Well, if you were in their position, you might say, "We're not that prepared to fight until the last man". I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to be in charge, either. Who would die fighting in a place like this, prepared to be crushed to death?
"Well, then, let's finish this up."
"Ha!"
The fact that they showed a willingness to fight a full-scale war was simply a way to buy time. I'm the one who is the most frightened by this stalling, a sort of gamble I bet on the enemy's profit and loss.
From the Empire's point of view, it would be possible to take down the city of Gruve if they continued to attack with force. However, the loss of soldiers is inevitable, and the city of Gruve's urban capacity will drop. Considering that they will continue to chase us as we flee, they will not be able to let us go so easily.
An overwhelmingly weak opponent who is prepared to die is also a difficult opponent to deal with. They must have known that since they came to us to demand our surrender.
"Report! Enemy deployed more widely on both wings. They are probably ready in sieging."
Okay, they have surrounded us as expected. They even went to the trouble of leaving only the north gate out of the four gates.
"That took a while."
"Well, if you don't push, no one will pull. Especially if they're half-witted."
"And the wise man will hide his blade", was a saying from one of my treasured books.
"We'll make our move at night. So much for their serious war, we've got to..."
Remember. This is not a war to be won.
"We're fighting to keep our losses to a small one."
Thanks for the chapter
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