Chapter 259

“The war has already been decided. An unexpected outcome has emerged, but nothing will change.”

Brnoa spat out in an authoritative tone.

Just behind him, Daniel was being carried on a stretcher.

I scoffed lightly and asked, “Where does that baseless confidence come from?”

“This is not confidence. Even if a much more one-sided outcome had occurred, my intentions would not have changed.”

“Hm.”

My mood started to sour.

It felt like I was speaking to a wall.

I made sure not to let my pupils, which I had barely reverted, tear vertically again as I surveyed my surroundings.

Many soldiers were casting wary glances at Lady Trentia, while even more soldiers were attending to their own tasks.

They were sharpening weapons, offering prayers, polishing holy relics with holy oil, and hauling carts filled with horse feed in different directions.

“Are you planning to kill them all?”

“I will be right beside them, Noble.”

“Call me ‘Your Grace’, you lowly one.”

“…I serve the will of the nation and the people, not just one individual. I cannot do otherwise.”

At that moment, I thought I might have been misjudging this general.

“…”

I could not feel any corruptive energy, and besides the cross, he bore no magic tools.

Even if I gently pulled up the energy of incantations to solidify or disturb the surrounding mana, he wouldn’t even flinch.

“?”

He even sent me a curious glance.

It meant he was an ordinary person who could not sense mana at all.

“The will of the people, huh…”

“All I wanted was to fight for the country and its citizens, and the parliament ordered me to liberate the oppressed serfs of the Empire. I have no right to refuse that order.”

Brnoa stared at me intently.

In his thick reddish-brown eyes, I caught a faint reflection of myself.

Even if he swung his sword with all his might, it wouldn’t even pierce my eyelids; yet, I felt a certain form of strength emanating from him.

And I was well accustomed to crushing such forms of strength.

“I will kill you if you don’t retreat.”

“Then another commander will come. We have already completed the formation of the 100,000 troops.”

“I must request Your Majesty to summon a meteor.”

“While a meteor may destroy our buildings and take lives, our spirits will remain intact.”

“What does it mean to create 100,000 corpses?”

“The world will know that the wicked nobility of the Solletarass Empire killed 100,000 people, unwilling to improve the treatment of the serfs.”

I spoke, though I thought it was not my place to say so.

“Is announcing that fact as important as the lives of 100,000?”

The general’s thick eyebrows twisted.

“Many things cannot be accomplished by sparing a life. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing there is something more valuable than my life. That is what makes life fulfilling.”

I let out a fake laugh.

“This seems to have far exceeded the level of not holding back, doesn’t it? Not even the punishment units would be sent out with such a disparity in strength.”

I noticed that Brnoa was wearing a wedding ring on his hand.

“Caesar the Abominable will send assassins. Your family will suffer painfully for a long time. Can you still issue the command to advance if they capture your children alive and hang them in front of the shields?”

“Your words are far too lengthy for gossiping. Anyone might think that the Noble wants to spare us.”

“You’re a pathetic father.”

I mocked with all my strength, causing Brnoa’s face to twitch.

“…I acknowledge it.”

He raised one hand, and heavily armored soldiers approached and grabbed Eric’s arms.

“General Brnoa!”

Eric shook his body roughly but could not escape.

He spoke in a business-like manner.

“Councilor Eric, your actions clearly exceed the scope of your duties as ‘negotiations during war, diplomatic missions.’”

Eric shouted with veins bulging in his eyes.

“This is a Republic that began to save lives!”

“I must say that what the councilor is attempting to overturn is a sacred deployment order passed formally in parliament, it is an act of rebellion.”

“Killing 100,000 in the name of the people is the most atrocious crime the Republic could commit. Why was this war started? Was it not for the pride and approval ratings of the councilors? What difference is there now between us and the nobility we despised?”

“Please remain in the tent until combat begins.”

“Let go! You bastards! I cannot kill you all! This is suicide for the citizens!”

Councilor Eric was forcibly dragged away.

“Please leave now.”

One soldier came to me and said.

I had Lady Trentia throw that soldier away.

“Are you telling me to walk over to the Noble? Bring horses and carts!”

* * *

Upon returning to our encampment, a procession proudly bearing the standard of the Bronze Knights and the three-headed dragon standard of the imperial court was approaching.

“Clear the way! The procession of Duke Helena is coming through!”

“An officer knight of the Bronze Knights has arrived.”

“He is the representative holding the Emperor’s flag, the executioner who will judge those vile traitors.”

Though the shouts were radical, the mechanized knights and artillery crossbowmen welcomed them warmly and they too flashed bright smiles at us.

“You’ve come!”

“We’ve been waiting!”

“We’ve saved some for you.”

On the day Helena and I finished our mock battle, we gathered the soldiers and held a feast right there.

This was a strategy devised to prevent the hostilities that had arisen from the event between my troops and Helena’s, as the military factions of the imperial court were already fraught with internal strife and competition.

The countermeasure proposed by Lady Trentia was very effective, creating a cheerful atmosphere during the meeting of the two military factions.

“Valenciaunos!”

A voice full of passion rang out like a blazing summer sun.

“Helena.”

She entered the encampment riding a magnificent warhorse, a beast mixed with monster blood, with two horns protruding from its head, called Baikon.

When she took off her bronze helmet, her long, radiant golden hair flowed down, gleaming like metal.

In her long, fluttering lashes, her red eyes burned with an intensity that seemed to merge all forms of greed—gluttony, lust, avarice, and the lust for glory—into a single, heated flame.

Perhaps due to training with the soldiers, rolling on the ground and racing through the mud every day, her once fair skin had become quite tanned, but it suited her well.

Helena hopped off the black Baikon and approached me.

“I heard you’ve fallen into unexpected worries.”

Had she “fallen”?

Or had I entered them?

“I wish I could help. I haven’t been much assistance so far, but after all, I’m your sister.”

The offer for help always felt welcome.

However, I was sure her assistance would have a slightly different direction than what I desired right now.

Helena spoke in an excited voice.

“Look at the soldiers I’ve brought. Valenciaunos.”

Like a color horse seeing a beauty, like a dragon welcoming treasure, like a dwarf receiving ice-cold beer.

* * *

“Firstly, all six of those knights over there are comrades of the Bronze Knights. They are leading mid-heavy cavalry made up entirely of sword users.”

A group of cavalry wore full-body plate armor engraved with incantation circuits.

“And next to them are mid-heavy infantry, swordsmen from the Academy’s swordsmanship department. Each one of them can fight hundreds alone, living by and dying for orders.”

The mid-heavy infantry were armed with potions, offensive magic scrolls, various consumables, shock resistance runes inscribed shields, and enormous one-handed swords.

“It was quite difficult to teach combat sorcery to research mages. But now they are warriors who can cast spells while manufacturing magic tools on the battlefield.”

The mages wore masks resembling plague doctors and leather coats inscribed with incantations, armed with thorny staffs, Estocs inscribed with destruction spells, ballistae or crossbows.

They were sure to provide consumable magic tools while unleashing terrifying magical bombardments, buying time until reinforcements arrived.

“The priests won’t participate in the battle directly but will assist in treating the wounded, while those fellows will take care of the corpses.”

The group dressed in white with hoods were indeed priests, but next to them were some unfamiliar figures dressed in bone armor wielding skull staffs.

Sererassie mumbled in a peculiar voice.

“Bringing them along with the priests must have been no simple task, even for royalty; the world truly seems to have changed.”

Helena’s forces included about a dozen necromancers.

Helena shrugged as if asking what the matter was.

“We can’t just leave corpses on the battlefield for them to rot. After the battle, we can’t tell weary soldiers to go and pick up the corpses they killed.”

I nodded while she confidently continued.

“I don’t want to have zombies, skeletons, abominations, wraiths, and ghouls sprouting up wherever I go. They have to be gathered and properly cremated some way or another. Funerals are important for maintaining the morale of our side too.”

Helena smiled like the best field commander I knew.

“Of course, the numbers are still lacking. The individual skills may also be inferior to your mechanized knights. But I know how to use frontal charges, ambushes, and lures effectively, depending on the situation, and I know how well my soldiers can fight.”

It was a smile as hot as the flames of hell.

“Of course, I cannot defeat an army of 100,000 head-on, but I am confident to win against them a hundred times, a thousand at a time.”

She shrugged once more.

“What are you hesitating for? Valenciaunos.”

Then she moved closer and patted my back heartily.

“Let’s dive into the flames of battle together. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”

* * *

I stood on the edge of a mountainside, looking westward at the setting sun, feeling the wind.

The chill of the winter wind couldn’t even disrupt the hardened hair that smelled like oil.

In the distance, a cloud of dust arose beyond the mountain ridges.

Brngg.

It seemed Brnoa was trying to flank us and move toward the heart of the Empire.

Thinking that a war named ‘Liberation War’ often results in most people being liberated from this world, perhaps I should run and throw a spear of fire right now.

As the tax-collecting nobility, I had sacred and inviolable duties and rights I must uphold.

It was my obligation and right to ensure that not a single one of our subjects’ fingers, or even a grain of wheat, was harmed.

To that end, I would drop a meteor onto the Land of Lanzo, spread disease, and torture the governors, and so I would.

“What troubles you so much?”

At that moment, a dry and fishy voice came.

Looking to my left, Marcus was wearing glasses and grinning wickedly.

I didn’t feel the need to respond, and he continued without asking further.

“Technologies exist to be used. Right now, launch the Nibelungen, rain artillery from the sky, and descend upon the enemy officers, descending your mechanized knights. You can do that, can’t you?”

Another breeze blew.

As the blazing sun and the gaze of the God of Radiance disappeared below the horizon, the ominous energy of the magical realms came carried on the wind.

At that moment, Sererassie approached from my right.

“Brother, is there no way to heed Eric’s wish? You’re the only one in that fanatic’s country who understands reason. …If you kill Brnoa and show overwhelming strength in one battle, wouldn’t they flee on their own?”

For once, she seemed anxious as if she was watching my reaction.

It was as if she knew this was absurd, and she kept sighing.

I had just thought that too.

If I burned around 3,000 with one spell and threatened them with lightning, wouldn’t they all retreat?

However, given that the upper echelons of the Republic were suspected to be infiltrators, new generals and new soldiers would come instead.

…I had no idea how those true believers could be hiding among them.

I cursed under my breath, overwhelmed with frustration.

Suddenly, a thought brushed through my mind.

It was a strategy I had executed a couple of times even before my return.

If done well, I might be able to not only force the army of Lanzo and the Republic to retreat, but also uncover the reality of the infiltrator forces hiding among the councilors.

* * *

“Valenciaunos. Are you insane?”

Helena stared wide-eyed, Lady Trentia’s mouth dropped open, and Sererassie could hardly believe her ears.

Valenciaunos pointed to the place marked with an X on the map.

“Let’s send all of these materials to the Land of Lanzo. If they don’t want to die, they will have to order Brnoa to retreat in that esteemed council.”