CH 94

Offense 2

“Good, all according to schedule.”

Diaroze muttered with a grin inside the headquarters she set up in a field fortification. A large monitor set up in front of her is displaying a map with the locations of both her ally and enemy on it.

“For the time being, have the artillery units pin them there.”

“But Your Highness, their current location is a mountainous area with dense forest. Won’t the artillery strikes be less effective in such a terrain?”

Her staff raised a question. The mobile artillery units which are the main source of their firepower in this operation can fly and the multi-legged tanks which are equipped with rocket artillery also have enough mobility to thread through difficult terrain. If they move in, they should be able to land more effective shots.

“You think I don’t know that?’

“….N, no, I would never doubt that, Your Highness.”

Being glared at by Diaroze, the staff started sweating cold. After Diaroze strokes her favorite whip, she deliberately heaves a sigh.

“To put it briefly, I’m satisfied as long as we can pin them there. If we keep bombarding them constantly for a few days, their morale will surely plummet. We can just send in our main force after that.”

“I, I see……so it is all according to your plan, Your Highness.”

Diaroze was trying to convince her staff but on the inside, she is also against this tactic which could be said to be in contrast to Vuld aristocratic value. Relying on artillery is the cowardly way of the commoners. For an aristocrat, obtaining a spectacular victory through a frontal assault is ideal. However, Diaroze’s tactics tend to be roundabout as of late and dissatisfaction toward such tactics is widespread among her subordinates.

“That being said, I must praise our enemy for stopping their advance. If they had pushed a little bit further, they would have been caught in our line of defense already.”

No longer paying any mind to her subordinate, Diaroze was impressed at the formation of the enemy which is being displayed on the map. The glowing dots that represent the Calencian troops have stopped moving to deal with the Noredian force before retreating back to the mountainous area where they built their own field fortification.

“I expected there to be some reckless fools among them rushing toward our position. Maybe we launched our attack too quick huh……”

The Noredian line of defense consists of row after row of trenches and pillboxes stretching over the horizon. In addition to that, they also have some units camouflage themselves in the forest. If they had pushed in, Diaroze might have finished them already…….

“Well, whatever. This way the heavy artillery I placed here won’t go to waste. Keep it raining on them like this.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

After looking satisfactorily at her subordinates who began to give instructions to the frontline units, Diaroze looked toward another of her subordinates, the officer in charge of monitoring the Calencian Fleet.

“By the way, how’s their fleet doing?”

“No change so far, Your Highness. They’ve already anchored at the landing point and built a small base on the beach.”

Unlike the frontline, the situation of the Calencian fleet is still peaceful. However, they still have their mission to protect the withdrawal point and maintain the supply route. The unloaded supplies are being sent to the frontline using hover trucks and other similar vehicles. They are also being escorted by the striker unit originally in charge of protecting the fleet. The Nored side tried to attack them several times already but every attack was repelled by them.

“Alright, let’s mess with them a bit. Contact our submarine in charge of monitoring them. Tell them to sink a couple of their auxiliary ships.”

“Are we not going to mobilize [that fleet], Your Highness? If we attack them at this timing, I think we should be able to deal critical damage to their fleet……”

“Not yet. Even if we caused some damage to them, there would be no point if we let our main targets getaway. Right now, we are simply going to place some pressure on them first.”

“Understood.”

Although the officer did not look convinced, she obediently did as she was told.

Immediately after that, an encrypted message from the headquarters reached the submarine lurking under the war near the mainland.

“Hmm…….”

The captain of the submarine who saw the encrypted message groaned in a small voice.

“It’s an attack order. Load the torpedo tube No.1 through 8. Our target is……I guess that destroyer should do huh. Punch in the coordinates.”

“Finally. I was afraid that we would be forced to keep monitoring them forever.”

Her adjutant shrugged. This submarine has been monitoring the Calencian fleet ever since it left the harbor.

“It would have been a little exciting if they found us though.”

“They must have never been trained to combat submarines before. I guess the country bumpkins are all like this……”

Seeing her vice-captain saying that with a mocking smile, the captain also laughs.

“Even so, this [Blair] is a state-of-the-art submarine. They won’t be able to spot us so easily.”

This new submarine which combines the use of a fusion reactor and water jet propulsion is extremely quiet in the first place. With state-of-the-art camouflage equipped, it can even deceive active sonar. There’s no way that the Calencian army would be able to detect them with their second-rate equipment.

“Torpedoes loaded!”

“I’ve put in the coordinates, ma’am. We can fire at any time.”

“Good, fire!”

With the Captain’s order, eight torpedoes were fired from the bow of the submarine. The Calencian side did not notice that torpedoes were heading straight toward their anchored ships until they reached close proximity.

“Torpedoes! Get us up!”

“Where did they come from!”

Without even the time to lift the anchor, the Calencian destroyer hurriedly activated the anti-gravity lifter and ascended to the air. However, that is not enough to escape the torpedoes.

Detecting the ship’s ascension, the torpedoes switched from water jet to rocket propulsion. Like flying fishes, they soar out of the water with powerful acceleration and pierced themselves into the hull of the destroyer.

Immediately after that, a number of huge pillars of fire rose from the impact.

“Alright, let’s withdraw. After an attack like this, they should be able to tell our location after all.”

“Roger that. Rapid turn.”

Without confirming the battle result, the submarine quietly left the scene.