CH 247

All the tactical steps have been completed. The coordination with the galleon fleet is perfect. Now all that’s left is to put the strategy into action. This operation is also a race against time, so let’s start it immediately.

“I’m going to make sure that there is no damage here,” I said, “but please make sure that no one climbs up on the castle walls or looks over there from the top of a tall building.”

After warning them, I jump on top of the castle wall. No… I didn’t need to fly, right? I just jumped on it because climbing stairs and ladders was annoying.

I looked back towards the town and checked for the last time, but there weren’t any people on top of the ramparts or tall buildings as far as I could see. After confirming that everything was going according to the instructions, I looked out from the walls of Koenigsvelg.

You can see the Royal Polsky Army encircling Koenigsvelg in a fan shape centered in the northward direction. It seems like there are a lot of people in a wide zone because they put up tents and unloaded their war materials, but after all, 3,000 people feels like a small number.

For the inhabitants of this world, 3,000 people would feel like a fairly large number. In the first place, there are not many towns with a population of 3,000 people. Most of them are small towns. And a military could only be a small number of the population to be able to support their operations.

Not until the modern era was it possible to mobilize hundreds of thousands or even millions of soldiers in total war, because the industrial revolution’s explosions in population and improvement in productivity made it possible. Even if they all cooperated, it was often the best they could do to collect tens of thousands of soldiers.

Of course, if the nation was facing an existential crisis, they would probably conscript more than that, and during the years and decades of war, the precedents would have been in line with that. On the other side, a period of great devastation would follow this total mobilization. There aren’t many countries that can wage war with an army of tens of thousands of years during peacetime.

However, it is a story about professional soldiers and mercenaries who are always employed, and in the event of war, it is possible that farmers will be forced out and sent to the battlefield. The number of military personnel mobilized in ancient China is absurd, and while the numbers may be exaggerated, it probably also includes many of the peasants who were forced to grab a weapon and march to the battlefield.

There are those who say it is a lie or an exaggeration because Japan had a large number of soldiers during the Sengoku period, but that was only possible because they were not professional soldiers, but the local people who were sent to fight on the battlefield. And those peasant soldiers would return to their rice paddies and crop fields during the height of the agricultural season. That’s why the war was so carefree that it ended before the harvest and rice-planting seasons.

Considering that, Polsky mobilizing 3,000 soldiers shows how serious they are. If it was an impromptu battle, there is no way that so many soldiers would have been mobilized. Clearly, it was a planned invasion after much careful preparation.

Well, that’s fine. Let’s start the operation sooner than later. First, use Fire magic to attack the rear of the enemy and create a burning line. Smoked out and chased by the flames, the enemy has no choice but to approach us. Then, the galleon fleet and my magic add artillery fire and cut down most of their strength. From that point onward, all you have to do is use the walls of Koenigsvelg as a shield until the enemy surrenders.

“Fire…”

I raise my hand to create 5 fireballs. Of course, if such a heat source were to be generated so close to town, even the residents would be hot and suffering. I applied Wind magic to block the heat from escaping toward the town, but even then I couldn’t completely block it.

That’s because I can’t completely envelop the heat source. I don’t know if this fire is fueled by oxygen in the same way as physics, but if it’s completely surrounded by a wall of air, it might go out. Therefore, most of the town side is covered with Wind magic, but the surrounding area is not blocked, the heat is redirected than contained completely.

It’s just going to get hot if you hang this thing over the town forever, so let’s quickly throw it into the enemy’s camp. …… in the meantime, I wonder if I should involve the back line of the enemy camp. Let’s not just set fire to the back of the enemy camp, but also swallow soldiers there with magic. Thinking that I drop them a little closer than I originally planned.

“Oh…”

The bullets of fire landed, swelled up, and cut off the rear of the Polsky army like a large wall of fire. But it’s less effective than expected. I thought it would be okay if it expanded to the surroundings on impact, but in the end, most of the heat escaped upwards. The impact zone and its immediate vicinity were affected, but the effect is not good in terms of area damage.

If it was something like an explosion that spreads all around, it might be possible to spread the damage to everything around them to some extent, but if it’s just a fire that rises straight up, it will spread in a blur the moment it falls, and then it will stay there. I found that it would almost totally escape up to the top. If you want to effectively damage a wide range of enemies, you need a different tactic.

“Hmm… it’s not very pleasant to look at, is it…?”

Soldiers are fleeing the flames. I would like to say that it is a sight to behold from the top of the castle walls, but to be frank, it is not fun to watch. After all, smoking them out with fire is a disgusting tactic. 1

Don! Don! Do-do-do-don!

“Oh? Have they started the assault?”

As soon as I was thinking about that, the galleon fleet started firing their naval guns toward the east and west of the town. My Fire magic was the signal to begin bombardment, so they must have moved immediately. When I looked at the Polsky army, the fleeing soldiers were blown away by the galleon’s cannonballs, but they continued to run to escape the flames.

“It’s going according to plan… but it’s still kind of shameful or painful to kill people…” I said. “Well, they are the ones who attacked us first, so we can’t help it, can we… hmm? What is that…?”

Just as the galleon fleet launched their attack, I spotted someone in the distance deflecting a Caan cannonball. The people around him are dressed in fancy-looking clothes and gaudy equipment. Perhaps it was a gathering of generals and staff officers.

One of them was shooting down the Caan cannonballs mid-flight. Whoa, whoa… are you really human…? No matter how much you think about it from the modern world’s perspective, even if it’s not just an antique cannon, but one of the very first types invented, that’s still a flesh and blood human knocking down cannonballs… humans in this world seem to be full of monsters from the perspective of Earthlings.

If that kind of person is all over the world, I can’t take it anymore. I don’t know how much damage I’ll suffer if I’m stuck at the ramparts. My mother was so optimistic about a charge, but you can’t underestimate our enemies. We should reduce the enemy force as much as possible here before they approach.

Just don’t shoot magic into that group of generals and staff officers. The Caan cannon has an unstable trajectory, so it doesn’t matter if they get caught in the line of fire and get killed. But don’t aim at them directly. Certainly, if the commanders were to be rounded up, the enemy would be even more confused and would not be able to organize. However, then it will be impossible to demand a surrender.

Nothing is more dangerous than an army completely out of control. It’s true that in war there are ways to kill the commander and confuse the chain of command, but in this case, that wouldn’t be very suitable. After all, the enemy is approaching here. If you plan to rout them, you can crush their officers, but I want to avoid the runaway enemy soldiers storming like an avalanche into this town in a disorganized panic.

That’s why I won’t target that group. And even if a cannonball flies at them, that monster will shoot it down again. Some of the generals and staff officers may die, but as long as there’s someone in command position left, it’s fine. I just hope they call the whole army to surrender or retreat.

“Earth…”

Burning with Fire magic is a little intimidating. With Water magic, there is a possibility that I’ll stop the Fire Wall’s momentum though it has turned the rear into a sea of flame. Chopping with Wind magic or crushing with earth magic would be a realistic choice. That’s why I decided to fire an Earth cannonball.

Don! And the rock shell that flew out crashed, gouged out the ground, and then caused a shockwave that blew the enemy soldiers that weren’t directly hit. There are not even traces of the soldiers left behind. If I sliced them in half with Wind magic, it would have splattered the blood all over the field, and that would have been unbearable to look at. So, I shoot rock cannonballs repeatedly and casually, hoi, hoi, hoi.

The cannonball exceeds the speed of sound, so a sonic boom occurs. In order to prevent the shockwave from reaching the town, it is necessary to cover my back with Wind magic to some extent.

After reducing the number of enemies in such a fashion, they finally reached the walls of Koenigsvelg. There are probably a few hundred people left. I hope they’ll surrender now…

“Your Excellency, the power of the enemy’s attacks is too great to attack near the walls,” a soldier escorting the top officers said. “Let’s rest here a while, get into formation, then storm Koenigsvelg.”

“So I see…” I said as I watched from the ramparts. “So you have no intention of surrendering yet… I extend my apologies.”

It can’t be helped if the enemy still intends to fight. Besides, if you take a closer look, this guy is the inhuman monster that just shot down cannonballs with nothing but his strength. Certainly, if such a monster existed, he could have dropped Koenigsvelg’s garrison by himself.

“-! Who are you?!” he yelled.

“I’m Baron Floto von Caan, from the Royal Guard Division of the Kingdom of Ploiss,” I said after I jumped off the ramparts.

I used Wind magic to get off slowly, so my skirt didn’t roll up and cause me to flash my underwear. Well, even so, if you had been peering in from directly below, you would have been able to see it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get down where there are people directly below me.

“Bloody Maria……!?”

The monster was calling my mother’s title. Could this be the monster she’s been fighting with so many times? I wonder if it’s dangerous here…. it’s possible that I’m no match. I chose to jump off and abandon my position myself, but now I regret it…

“Oh my? Did someone call my name?”

At that time, Mother also jumped down beside me. I flew down with Wind magic, but Mother jumped down from the top of a several-meter-high wall with her armor and that stupidly fucking heavy spear equipped. After all, my mother is a monster… and the one able to compete with her on even ground is also a monster, just like her.

“Hey, Janzicka! What are you doing!? This is so pathetic!” someone yelled. “What’s wrong with facing two women!? If anything, I, Lord Mikalojus, will have to deal with them myself! Uhihi! I’m not going to kill you right away! I’ll kill you after torturing you so thoroughly!”

I looked at the sudden voice… and saw a man who looked like a high-ranking aristocrat, dressed in extraordinarily flashy and luxurious clothes, approaching me while spouting all that. What is it now?

“Kill us after torturing us? Don’t tell me… are you talking about my beloved mother?” I asked.

“Huh? What was that? Of course, I mean the two of you!” the nobleman said. “Gyahahaha! First, I’ll cut off the tendons in your hands and feet! And then…”

As he approaches me, he says such awful things. Kill my mother after torturing her? This piece of shit? Don’t fuck with us! Even if it’s a joke, I won’t allow you to get away with those words!

“You can’t do that, Flora dear. If you hit him with that kind of power, he’ll die, you know? He’s one of the magnates, so let’s capture him instead of killing him.”

“Mother……”

When I tried to punch him, my mother grabbed my arm and stopped me. No matter how much I wasn’t at full power and didn’t use buff magic, she caught up with my fist from a standstill and held it securely, just how much of a monster is my mother?

Ah~… thanks to that, my hot head got cold. I would like to see if there is someone who can put my mother in a position to torture her. With how Mother is, even if she were to deal with a single country by herself, she would easily get into her opponent’s base and capture the King or whoever. As expected, if she was chased every hour of the day, 365 days a year, she would be exhausted and might be defeated sooner or later, but before that, she would silence her opponents by slaughtering all their leaders.

There is more to think about still. Mother just now said that I was about to blow away this magnate. Speaking of magnates, they should have been those who controlled the Parliament of Polsky. No wonder he was guarded by such a monster.

Come to think of it, I forgot about the monster that knocked down the cannonballs because of this magnate, but is it alright?