Chapter 550

Chapter 550: Road to Kingdom ⑦ Give It Your All

I can see that the royal army’s movements have changed.

To put it positively, their formation until now has not strayed from the basics.

Negatively speaking, their formation was conventional.

I sweep my Keravnos from left to right while roaring.

Both soldiers guarding themselves with shields and soldiers blocking with swords are squashed like dry grass.

The kingdom’s battle formation consisted of two army corps.

Bruno and Agor had been in command previously, but Erich will have to take direct control from now on.

I store up energy for a few seconds and unleash a full-powered swing with my Dual Crater.

My slash cuts through a knight like butter, another cavalry behind him is knocked off his horse from the flying fragments of armor and human flesh, and ten spearmen fall on their asses from the shockwave produced by my sword slamming into the ground.

「He smashed a heavy knight to pieces!? Even a direct hit from catapults won’t do this. And he did it with just a swing of his sword……」

「The entire spear unit was not touched and they were shaken to the ground……that brute strength is in the realm of magic at this point!」

I simultaneously cut apart approaching cavalry from either side with my Keravnos and Dual Crater.

Blood and guts that spray out from their mutilated bodies obstruct my vision.

「How annoying. I can’t see,」

When I swing my weapons, the gust created from the motion blows the tide of blood into the air.

I run past, avoiding the rising torrent of blood.

「So this is the war demon――」

I cleave a knight in two at the chest.

「He’s just a demon to me――」

I skewer two spear-wielding infantry at once with my Keravnos, then pull it backwards to crack the head of the cavalry who was waiting for an opening on the opposite side with the butt of my spear.

「……s-scary.」

After stopping my attack at the last moment, I squeeze the female knight between my spear and the flat part of the sword, then toss her into a muddy pond.

Although my body was rampaging, my mind remained calm.

Not only do I have a clear grasp on the enemy in front of me, I have a good understanding of the overall battle state.

「It’s meaningless even if I make it through.」

I said I would face Erich without being careless.

Then he should expect me to surpass his defenses.

It’s highly likely for the headquarters to be located on the walls or within the city.

Perhaps he also has a countermeasure planned to prevent me from breaking through.

A bunch of arrows rain down.

I reflexively deflect them with my Dual Crater, but they felt awfully heavy.

When I block the arrow aimed at my face with my gauntlet, pain shoots through my whole arm.

「There’s a weight attached to the tip……the impact will be heavier, but it won’t pierce anything.」

If I take the hits with my armor or hands instead of my weapons, the damage will gradually build up.

And then it would be impossible for me to knock down all the arrows fired by dozens of soldiers.

「Is this specifically for me?」

Against regular soldiers, these arrows would be faulty weapons with low accuracy and short range, and it would be hard to deal fatal wounds with them.

「Don’t think this is enough to stop me.」

I repel an arrow with my arm and ignore the arrow that hits my torso.

Continuously suffering blows from blunt weapons isn’t going to make me groan.

However Schwartz unwillingly decelerates and I realize their true intention.

Next, a cavalry approaches while swinging something.

「Do it!」

A weight attached to a chain comes flying in time with the yell.

Such a half-hearted throw won’t defeat me.

I intercepted the incoming attack with my Dual Crater and cut one cavalry down, but the enemy was waiting for me to swing my sword so they could wrap the chain around it.

「Alright, his weapon is sealed!」

「Are you dumb……?」

I lightly tug my arm and the cavalry goes flying.

「Now!!」

This time my Keravnos and left arm are tangled with four chains.

「It doesn’t matter if you fall off. Use the force of falling to pull him down!」

The cavalry holding the chains changes direction.

Making true on their promise, they jump off their horses and tug hard on the chain.

All four of them let out a spirited shout, but float in the air before landing on the ground.

The reason is simple, it’s because I pulled in the other direction.

I hold up and rotate my arm and spear.

The soldiers spin like a children’s toy until they are not able to hang on and are flung off by the centrifugal force.

「If four Macks were holding on, it would have been hard to do.」

By the time the third person fell, another weight flew at my face.

I stop the projectile with my teeth, then throw the man hanging persistently till the end on the head of the shocked cavalry.

I can’t be defeated by an attack like this.

The result will be the same no matter how much you try.

But Erich’s cheap trick fully displayed its effect.

「Tch, is this the limit?」

Schwartz seems to heave a big sigh and drastically begins to slow down.

I wasn’t the only one being hit with the weight-tipped arrows, Schwartz was also hit with many of them.

Schwartz is wearing horse armor made with the mark of a dragon so normal arrows do virtually no damage.

However the arrows hit like blows from blunt weapons, so even if blocked by the armor, the impact is absorbed by his body.

Schwartz isn’t one who usually faints in agony from pain, although having to sprint at full speed while continuously pelted all over means his strength and stamina are being sapped.

To top it off, there are the effects from the chains.

Whether it’s catching them or deflecting them, my center of gravity shifts hectically, and Schwartz acting as my platform is further fatigued.

I glance quickly behind me.

A horse from the escort squad cannot handle my movements. An exhausted Schwartz would still be better.

As if punishing me for looking away, a giant bolt from a ballista lands, scattering iron debris.

I reflexively deflect them, but it is impossible to knock down the countless shards.

Chips flying barely above the ground graze and injure Schwartz’s leg.

When Schwartz buckled under me, I understood it was no longer an option to ride on him.

「This is good enough.」

I hop off Schwartz, who rapidly decelerates and turns his face away in a bad mood.

「The war demon lost his horse!!」

「It’s our chance! Now our futile fight ends!」

「The peace which we finally attained……I’m fed up with war! Let’s make this the last fight!!」

Three knights charge at me now that I’m on foot from the left, right, and front.

The one in front has a lance, while the other two are wielding halberds.

「It’s not over.」

I stick my Dual Crater into the ground and hold my Keravnos with both hands.

I lower my waist and take a thrusting stance.

「The fight is not over yet.」

I dash at the one in front of me, and lunge forward.

The knight’s thrust skims my earlobe, while my spear bores through his throat and exits the back of his head.

「I’m still alive.」

I tear through the first knight’s head with my Keravnos, then fall forward using the momentum to roll out of the way of a halberd, and as I get up, sever the hind leg of the right knight’s horse.

「I won’t be stopped by you guys.」

By the time the remaining knight turned, I had already leaped.

My spear plunges into his abdomen before he can point his halberd at me, and shortly after, I silently pull my weapon back out of his body.

「Come, try to stop me.」

I face the other royal army soldiers as the knight slowly tilts and falls off his horse.

The sun shining in the west dyes my blood-stained face even redder.

Soldiers, commanders and brave-looking knights alike take one step back when my line of sight lands on them and take three steps back when I turn my body in their direction.

In the rear, friendly troops are weaving through the army thrown into disorder by Bruno’s death.

Despite their dire situation……it will still be difficult to break through Erich’s army.

Tough. Color fades away from my red-tinted face.

The sun sinks below the horizon and the red sky is painted black.

With my mobility gone, the escort squad and the other soldiers catch up.

「There’s less.」

Moreover, everyone is out of breath and it’s taking all their energy just to hold their weapons.

「It’s a pretty fierce battle after all……」

Celia says dejectedly.

Conversely, the 15 000 of the royal army corps in front of us are unscathed, and the deputy commander will eventually regroup the army behind us rattled by Bruno’s death. Adding to that, there is another army of 15 000 on the city walls.

Our allies arrive and enter the fray against Erich’s army, but don’t have any visible momentum.

They seem to be somewhat pressing forward simply because their opponent is on the defense.

Tristan explains the reasoning.

「This may add to an already worsening situation, but the scouts returned. The two army corps of the kingdom are approaching from the west. There isn’t much time until they arrive. They’ll be within sight at any moment now.」

Sekrit gazes at me while poking at an ally.

「It’s no longer a matter of morale. The loss of equipment and fatigue has made it impossible to operate. At the very least the wagon unit entrusted to me is at its limit in terms of offense. What is needed is a tactical retreat or a substitution of spare troops.」

We don’t have time or manpower to do that.

Sekrit obviously knows that too.

「Umm……」

Luna speaks hesitantly as she takes command of the skirmish with Erich’s army.

「Leopolt has been gone for a short while.」

Celia’s jaw drops so much that a radish can fit in her opened mouth and Myla reverts back to her original nature.

Sekrit closes her eyes and tilts her head to the sky.

I exhale a long stream of air, and adjust the grip on my weapons.

「Aah, about that――」

Tristan chimes in with a troubled tone, but I cut him off.

「Then he should be coming soon. I don’t mind retreating, just make sure to save one last drop of energy for the very end.」

Leopolt instigated me this much, he won’t run away.

In other words, he’s going to do something.

「……I was thinking of saying the same thing.」

Just as Tristan mumbles unhappily, a large volley of arrows flies from the west toward the city walls of Goldonia.

Royal army soldiers are startled and the commanders shout in a panic.

「What!? A new enemy!?」

「No way. Hardlett has no reinforcements! And it’s weird for them to come from the west!」

The movement of the royal army, who easily withstood our fatigued offense, suddenly becomes disorganized.

I jump into the frontlines on foot and listen in to the conversations.

「It’s the third and fourth army corps who are attacking!」

「Idiots, what are they doing!? They finally decide to come and can’t even distinguish ally from enemy!?」

Friendly fire?

I can understand if it was night time, but it’s hard to believe that they mistook us for their allies stationed within the capital.

「Immediately following the sunset, a group of black-robed individuals occupied a corner of the west wall in the blink of an eye, and attacked the two arriving army corps from atop the wall!」

「Impossible! Guards are stationed on the walls, taking even a small section in such short time is……」

That’s certainly the work of Brynhildr and her vampire squad.

Jumping on the wall and routing the sentinels is a simple task for them to pull off.

Because of their numbers, it would be hard for them to defeat the army head-on.

「Afterwards, an unknown cavalry got in contact with them――and told them the capital was stolen by an ambush.」

「You think they would actually be deceived by a lie like that!? There was no confirmation sign and the uniform is……ah.」

We were allies not long ago.

We know the code shared among allies and we have a few leftover uniforms from exchanging them as necessary during the great war.

Let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of the reinforcing army corps.

No matter how much we claim to be allies, we keep being shot at.

And then a cavalry who wears the same uniform and knows the secret code tells you that the enemy has invaded the capital already――

「No way.」

I reject the idea and slice the commander in front of my eyes in two.

Things won’t be that convenient.

Aside from all them being totally incompetent, this is Erich we’re talking about.

Even if such a cheap trick caused a slight disturbance, he would have everything back under control before any damage can be dealt.

「Mm, there is one more way. Although it’s closer to magic than a tactic……uwah, uwah! Save me!!」

Apparently not talking enough earlier, Tristan comes over, but he clings to my waist when he gets targeted.

「Gk, gross!」

I pull Tristan away, deflect the incoming sword and split the enemy’s head open.

During that move, I see a red light that illuminates the darkness.

The moment I strain my eyes, my vision expands, almost like I am being sucked in.

「Yaaah!!」

Oops, I wasn’t paying attention again.

I turn around to face the royal army soldier and――

「Huh?」

I was about to cut through the sword and the soldier, but I quickly received the slash with my gauntlet and kicked the soldier away instead.

That guy was dressed in the same equipment as my private army.

「Just because the other side is attacking each other, doesn’t mean we have to copy……」

In the middle of my sentence, the soldier’s uniform changes back to being the royal army’s equipment.

No, nothing changed. It stayed the same all along, I was the one who made a mistake.

「And it was a woman too.」

I knock the soldier’s sword out of her hand with my foot and strip her naked.

「Eeeek! Pervert!」

This takes her out of the fight.

Hopefully she finds a shed to cry in until the end of the battle.

「That’s right. Brynhildr-san’s eyes create “misunderstandings”. That plus the trick will result in some chaos…… She’s a really bad person, don’t you think? She’s someone you don’t usually team up with willingly.」

I see, Brynhildr’s ability magnified the effect of Leopolt’s lie.

「Hurry and snap the reinforcements back to their senses! They should know who their ally is once they get over here! What!? They’re shooting at us!? Did they go insane!!?」

「Take back the wall first! If the capital guards have cowarded out, then we’ll send soldiers…… the whereabouts of the 100-man recovery squad are unknown? It was done by one man wielding two swords?」

If it was solely Leopolt’s plan, the confusion would be temporary, and judging Brynhildr’s ability by their effects on me, the state of misunderstanding wouldn’t last long. However it’s because they were combined that the result of friendly fire was produced.

「The strategy is to take advantage of the confusion. Its rate of success……isn’t very high.」

Yes, the royal army is in disarray.

But the frontlines are still intact.

The trick and vampires will eventually be revealed to them.

The enemy army clumps together in one big group.

The sounds of fierce battle quiet down.

「T-this is our chance! Commence the all-out attack!!」

We were the only ones to launch an attack, but the royal army devoted themselves to defense in order to minimize the damage.

「An order for emergency situations……it’s one unique to the royal army.」

Sounds of fighting in the west where the reinforcements are committing friendly fire are also dying down.

Eventually, we won’t be able to hear them.

What else can be expected?

The real rebel army is here and only Brynhildr’s group is on that part of the walls.

「Also, the deception squad……the unarmed mountain nation, I used them. They were supposed to run around and find a way to liven things up again……but they were discovered.」

The royal army is now able to clearly distinguish ally from enemy.

「Enemy identified! Those on section two and three of the western city wall, as well as the 2000 unarmed cavalry and small group of wagons are not complying with orders!」

「Resume the attack! Everyone except the ones at the specified locations on the west are allies. I repeat――」

Leopolt and Brynhildr’s joint strategy was exposed in merely ten minutes.

「Crush the cavalry before they scatter. Concentrate all firepower on them!」

「Run fast! They intend to meet up with the main rebel army!」

「Start with the slow wagons. Set them on fire with flaming arrows. They are transporting infantry inside. Surround them once they have stopped!」

Arrows rain down from the walls.

Wagons become engulfed in flames and the royal army quickly forms circles around several of the disabled vehicles.

A tremendous flash of light is accompanied by a deafening roar, then a shockwave strong enough to blow my hair up follows――

When we reflexively duck, royal army soldiers who were near the wagons and debris fly over our heads.

「They exploded!?」

Good job Celia, that’s correct.

It’s not an ordinary explosion though.

We could feel the threat of the explosion even from hundreds of meters away and there’s red smoke rising from the rubble.

「What did Leopolt put in those wagons?」

「I’m not concerned with this part of the plan. If I had to guess, maybe it’s the incredible substance the dwarves gave us?」

A cloud of the same size billows up from the west at the same time.

If the wagons were packed with the dwarves’ special gunpowder, that explosion would have an unbelievable destructive power.

Those in the vicinity will obviously be caught in it, but even those shooting arrows won’t escape unharmed.

「More important to note is the mayhem caused.」

The massive explosion happened right after the royal army recovered from the friendly fire incident.

Soldiers are rattled, making it harder for them to receive orders from the commanders.

「Ah, I wasn’t aware of the explosion, but I know the final plan. I mean, everyone knows.」

All of us nod and open up the shortest path to the city gate.

A creature growls from within the darkness and then footsteps heavy enough to shake the ground slowly become louder.

「Smoothie is coming through!!」

With an iron helmet on her head, the smooth-scaled lizard crawls forward at full speed.

If she comes out when the enemy is in perfect condition, all firepower could focus and kill the lizard, so that’s why the mayhem is necessary to delay their response time.

Stray projectiles here and there won’t be enough to stop the smoothie.

The smoothie charges into the gate with a thud.

Soldiers on either side of the collision zone fall and stone chips disperse.

The gate bends and a watchtower topples over.

「A bit more!」

The smoothie roars and fire shoots out from her back.

More precisely it is one of the things she is carrying, two of the bulky dwarven cannons we could not carry.

The gate is sent flying by the close-range blast.

We can see the main street of the capital and the palace.

「Everyone, rush toward the palace!!」

I run before anyone can reply.

「Gah, the city walls――!!」

「What are your orders!? Do we stop the enemy army!? Do we return to the capital!? Do we attack the giant beast!?」

「The black-robed group has abandoned the city walls and invaded the capital! The guards are engaging them but are encountering formidable resistance and require assistance!」

「I-in this case……we need to look for direction from the military commissioner! Anyways continue engaging and maintain the current situation!」

So this is what they call pandemonium.

「When the situation is this chaotic, even an excellent commander can’t solve this with just orders. Which means they will either flood into the capital or……」

Tristan says while desperately running beside me.

I thought he was doing well to keep up until I saw him riding on Irijina’s back……I guess that’s fine too.

I sprint like the wind and barge into the capital, tearing through royal army soldiers.

I’ll run straight to the palace like this.

I was aiming for that, but I found myself stopping at the entrance of the main street.

「All troops should return to inside the city walls and prioritize stopping the enemy forces. The black-robed raiders will be dealt with by a small number of palace guards and security. Set up artillery on the road to deal with the giant beast.」

A single cavalry stands on the main street in support of the confused army.

He has a calm and collected voice while giving appropriate orders and conducts himself in an imposing yet controlled manner.

The mayhem recedes like the tide.

「Erich.」

He pierces me with a gaze I’ve never seen before.

Military Strength Comparison

Hardlett Rebel Army

Human Troops

Infantry: 1600 (-600)

Cavalry: 300 (-200)

Bow Cavalry: 2500 (-1000)

Wagon Infantry: 300 (-200)

Chariots: 0 (disabled)

Field Artillery: 15 (disabled)

Disguised Unit: 1500 (-500+all escaped)

Night Battle Unit

Vampire Raid Unit: 70 (-30)

Aerial Reconnaissance and Bombing Unit

Pochi: 1

Smoothie: 1 (castle gate blocked off)

Unarmed

Mountain Nation: Approx. 2000

———————————————————————————————-

Goldonian Army – injured soldiers also considered losses

Ready to Fight: 59 000

2 Army Corps: 19 000 (-5000)

Capital Defense: 13 000 (-2000)

Kingdom Knights Survivors: 0 (incapacitated)

Reinforcement 2 Army Corps: 27 000 (-3000)

Not Participating

Provisional Army: 30 000 (five days remaining)

Other Feudal Lords’ Armies: Unknown

Regional Troops: Immobilized