“If your shields can no longer serve their purpose, discard them! Once the enemy gets in range, trade those spears for swords and fight back!” Hearing Babel’s words, the soldiers’ faces lit up with hope, and they did as they were told. It didn’t change the fact that they were currently at a disadvantage, but it would buy them a bit of time, at least.
“All troops with their shields still intact, form a defensive line! That throwing spear trick won’t work on us twice!” His voice boomed with confidence and vigor. Moreover, it was the right call. The only ones who’d had their shields compromised were the troops who’d been on the front most line. The soldiers behind them were unaffected—physically, at least. The unrest the front line had suffered had certainly spread to the lines behind them as well. However, thinking about it rationally, the enemy only had swords of normal length, and they still had their long spears, so in terms of reach, they still had the upper hand.
“Now, warriors of Steel, it’s do or die! Muster up all your courage and fighting spirit, and live to fight another day!”
The troops shouted back their approval—their spirits reignited—and proceeded little by little to claw their way up from their disadvantageous position until they finally began to push back against Nozomu’s army once more.
“I never would’ve imagined they could recover from that... He’s really on a whole different level.”
Nozomu bit his lip in vexation. Babel was strong—that was no new discovery for him. He’d known that Babel had been placed under Jorgen’s supervision and had been hand-selected by Yuuto himself as the one to succeed him, after all, so how could he not be? Even if he hadn’t inherited Yuuto’s ideals, it didn’t change the fact that he possessed monstrous strength.
“Yeah, I thought that would be enough, honestly.” Arness also wore a bitter expression. “If even Amess is showing a sour face, the situation jnust be dire,” Nozomu thought.
“But it doesn’t change the fact that this is our chance. Let’s end this,” Nozomu stated confidently.
“Good call,” Arness replied. “I daresay there’s no better opportunity than right now. I’ll send word to Sigurd and Haugspori.”
“Hell yeah! Sound the war horn!” Nozomu yelled excitedly.
Moments later, the booming cry of their war horn resounded throughout the battlefield.
“All right! Finally, my time to shine!” In the forest a ways away from Nozomu’s location, Sigurd gave a vicious, yet elated, grin. Perhaps as a result of his mother Fagrahvel’s rune, he’d been strangely fond of calls to arms ever since he was a child. “Sigurd Unit, time to move! Let’s kick the enemy to the curb in one fell swoop!” With that shout, Sigurd’s unit charged forward. They were already aware of the enemy’s phalanx formation— as well as its weakness. If they attacked from the side, the formation would crumble. Sigurd was grateful from the bottom of his heart that his older brother had had enough faith in him to give him such a critical role. After all, stuff like this was all he was good for.
“Well, not like it’ll be easy, though.” A daring grin crossed Sigurd’s face as the enemy came into view. It was the cavalry unit that had given Nozomu’s main force so much grief in their first battle. Sigurd wasn’t worried in the slightest though. He had a counterplan—specifically, something they had already prepared beforehand would now be repurposed.
Sigurd let loose a bellowing roar from deep within his chest. He sensed several distant enemy presences flinch.
It was Yuuto’s ironclad rule that they weren’t allowed to use anything that wasn’t from this era. However, that meant that everything already from this era was fair game. Elephants, for instance, were easily obtainable within the Orient. There was nothing saying they couldn’t use them.
“Ha ha ha! Kick it all to the curb! Trample them! Mow them down!” Sigurd howled maniacally. Of course, they couldn’t procure very many—only five. But the tremendous presence the gigantic animals brought to the table was incredibly effective nonetheless. The horses coming toward them immediately balked, refusing to move any further despite the urging of their riders. Some even threw their riders off and escaped in the opposite direction.
“Hell yeah! Now, my comrades, let us head for the enemy’s main unit and... Whoa?!” The elephants charged forward—in the wrong direction—before Sigurd could finish. It seemed they still needed some more training, which made sense considering he’d had to rush it, but the elephants refused to do his bidding. It was just as he’d suspected—this wouldn’t be as easy as it seemed. Despite that, the enemy’s cavalry unit had been consumed by panic by the sheer presence of the mighty beasts. This was the best opportunity he’d get. He had to act now.
“Guess there’s nothing for it! Looks like it’s up to Sigurd Unit to cut ’em all down!” Unsheathing his sword, Sigurd rushed into the fray. His ability to adapt to any and all setbacks and instantly make appropriate decisions was his greatest strength as a commander.
The instinct he’d inherited from his father and mother told him that this was the decisive moment between defeat and victory. This was where he was supposed to end it. He didn’t have to think about it—he just knew. His body and heart became fired up, the flames more intense than they’d ever been in his life. Power surged from his core and spread to every inch of his body.
“Outta the way, outta the way, outta the way!” He charged forward like a rocket, cutting down every enemy along his path until his target came into view. His target’s appearance hadn’t changed at all from when Sigurd was a child, so he recognized him immediately.
“Babel the Usurper! Your head is mine!” Sigurd yelled.
“Who—? Dammit, Fagrahvel’s kid?!” Apparently, Babel had also identified Sigurd in an instant. Sigurd’s chest swelled with anticipation. He’d always wanted to go all-out against this man, ever since he was young, and now he would have his chance. With a beastly roar, Sigurd brought down his sword on top of Babel.
Ting! The high-pitched metallic clash of two swords rang out.
“Raaaghhh!” Sigurd swung his sword furiously—like a wild beast slashing with its claws.
“Urgh!” His attacks were ferocious enough to immediately put Babel on the defensive. Considering how levelheaded Sigurd’s father and mother, Yuuto and Fagrahvel, typically were, Babel hadn’t expected Sigurd to have such a violent streak.
“No, actually, it makes sense. ” Babel revised his thinking. Yuuto could certainly be relentless and unforgiving when he needed to be, and Fagrahvel even possessed a rune that brought out the animalistic nature in people. When he considered that, it was actually rather likely that this aggressiveness did come from his parents.
“Haaah!”
“Ungh!”
Sigurd delivered a heavy blow that left Babel’s hands numb from the impact. The boy was only supposed to be around fifteen or sixteen, and his body clearly still had room to grow, so where was all that power coming from?
“He’s tough,” Babel thought. Likely even tougher than Babel had been when he’d been sixteen. Sigurd wasn’t even an Einherjar, so his ceiling for growth should have been much lower than Babel’s—Sigurd must’ve trained relentlessly to bridge that gap with his own blood, sweat, and tears.
That didn’t upset Babel—on the contra 17, it only improved his opinion of the boy. There was a certain type of strength and resilience that only those like Sigurd exuded.
“You’ve still got some growing up to do, kid.” With a loud clang, Babel parried Sigurd’s oncoming attack. Babel’s decision to take up a defensive stance hadn’t been made thoughtlessly. He’d been carefully observing Sigurd’s techniques and his movements the whole time. The boy’s swings were fast and powerful, but they didn’t have much else going for them. Given his young age, it was to be expected, but he lacked finesse. At Sigurd’s current level, he was simply no match for Babel.
“My turn,” Babel said with a smirk. He promptly unleashed his own flurry of strikes.
“Rgh?! Ngggghh!” In no time at all, the tables had been turned. Sigurd was just barely managing to maintain a defensive stance against Babel’s onslaught.
“What’s wrong, kid? Where’d all that bravado go, huh?!” With each swing, he pressured Sigurd further and further, even throwing in a taunt for good measure. Sigurd wasn’t weak by any means—in fact, he was far stronger than most boys his age. That on its own wasn’t enough, however. Babel had undergone years of Sigrun’s harsh training and had stood on countless battlefields. He’d overcome all of that and still remained in one piece. Put simply, he had practically a lifetime of experience on the boy.
“Hiyaaah!” Babel swung with all his might. The impact sent Sigurd’s sword off-kilter. Then, reversing the trajectory of his sword, he cut a quick, powerful slash across the boy’s unguarded abdomen. It was a fatal blow —or so he’d thought.
“What?!” Babel’s eyes went wide with astonishment when he saw what had actually occurred. Sigurd had stopped Babel’s attack midswing—he’d used his knee and elbow to clamp down on either side of the sword, perfectly trapping it between them. Babel couldn’t believe his eyes—no one in their right mind would even attempt something so outlandish in training, let alone in actual combat.
“Haah!” Without a moment’s hesitation, Sigurd released the sword and brought his own sword down on top of Babel.
“Rgh!” Babel managed to evade, but his shock at Sigurd’s feat had ended up delaying his reaction time. He felt a searing heat down his face, but he could tell it was a shallow cut—not fatal by any means.
Kicking off the ground, Babel leaped backward, gaining distance from his opponent so he could check the wound. Fortunately, it seemed to run from between his eyebrows to the top of his lips—in other words, away from his eyes. That meant there was no danger of blood seeping into his vision and hampering his ability to
“Huff... huff... You gave me a scare there, kid,” Babel said. Itwas no he. In fact, he couldn’t recall ever being so stricken with terror in his entire life. The fear of his potential imminent death was one thing, but it was Sigurd’s extraordinary understanding of the flow of battle that really made him shudder. Normally, the ploy Sigurd had used to trap his sword wouldn’t even have had a one-in-ten chance of succeeding, yet he’d managed to execute it perfectly on his first attempt. That level of concentration and good fortune could only be possessed by someone blessed by a god of war. He may have been a young kid, still wet behind the ears, but he’d sent chills down Babel’s spine nonetheless.
“But you paid a high price for that move, didn’t you?” A vicious grin stretched across Babel’s lips. That should’ve been Sigurd’s chance, but not only had he neglected to properly follow up on his ambitious gambit, he stood rooted to the spot, a pained expression on his face.
“You can’t fight with that knee or elbow anymore,” Babel said with a grin. Sigurd’s limbs had received the full brunt of a steel sword at midswing—there was no way he’d be in any condition to continue. Most likely, the bones in his arm and leg were broken, or at the very least, fractured. He’d have difficulty moving around or even standing. In other words, he was no longer a threat.
“Seems like I’ve lost this one,” Sigurd muttered.
“That’s right, kid. You lose—or should I say, all of you lose.” There wasn’t a doubt in Babel’s mind that the ambush waiting in the forest had been Nozomu’s ultimate trump card. With that shut down, there was nothing stopping Babel from using his superior numbers to crush the rest of Nozomu’s rebellion. The moment Sigurd lost, Babel had won this war.
“Heh... I wonder about that. The way I see it, now that we have her on our side, there’s no way you can win,” Sigurd responded, practically bursting with confidence.
“‘Her’...?” Babel frowned in suspicion. The moment he did, an unpleasant chill raced down his spine. Feeling an intense, otherworldly presence at his back, as though a god—or perhaps a demon—had manifested behind him, he turned around in a panic.
“If you end up losing to this bunch after coming this far, you might as well go back home and redo your training from scratch,” the presence said, her long black hair fluttering in the wind. She was so beautiful that, at a glance, she seemed out of place on the battlefield, but Babel was too focused on her eyes to notice her looks. Bewitching runes gleamed in both of her pupils. A peerless warrior with the power to trample anything and everything underfoot stood before him.
“The tyrant Babel has been captured! Victory is ours! Glory to the divine emperor!”
“Glory to the divine emperor!” Spirited cheers arose from the battlefield in unison. Somehow, they’d managed to eke out a victory. If Nozomu had to guess, Homura had likely done the honors. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had faith in Sigurd’s abilities—Sigurd was, without a doubt, the most skilled out of his siblings—but capturing an Einherjar alive was likely beyond Sigurd’s means.
“I suppose using our last-ditch insurance was the right call after all. With any luck, Sigurd’s managed to not kick the bucket, so we can call this a complete victory,” Arness said breezily.
“Don’t say something so ominous,” Nozomu said with a shudder. He knew Sigurd could be hot-headed— heck, even during their prebattle strategy meeting, Sigurd had been unrelenting in wanting to face off against Babel one-on-one—but he could only pray that Sigurd’s injuries hadn’t been too severe.
“Come to think of it, how’d you even manage to get Big Sis Homura to cooperate in the first place, considering how fickle she can be?” Nozomu asked, rather belatedly. Back then, his mind had been so preoccupied with the battle in front of him that he hadn’t paid it any mind, but now that he had room to breathe, he found himself curious.
Put succinctly, Oda Homura was a free spirit. She didn’t even count herself as one of Yuuto’s subordinates; she was treated more like a special guest. In other words, even Yuuto had no control over her. She was an audacious, intrepid woman who marched to the beat of her own drum.
“I didn’t really have to do anything. It was simple, considering her weak points are Big Sis Ephy and Sinmara,” Arness explained.
“Ah...” Now that he thought about it, that was true. Regardless of how self-centered and haughty she was, there were times when she begrudgingly ended up doing what Ephelia asked of her. When Nozomu had become curious and asked her why, she’d replied that she’d rather do Ephy’s bidding than have her friend cry on her.
“Get Ephy worried enough about her husband to come crying to Homura for help and bingo, she’s on our side,” Arness continued.
“I wouldn’t say that in front of Big Sis Homura if I were you,” Nozomu warned.
“I’d never. I actually value my life.” Arness forced a laugh. Even the perpetually coolheaded, dauntless tactician Arness trembled in fear when it came to Homura, it seemed.
“What we really need to worry about, though, is dad. He’s not gonna be happy that we had Big Sis Homura help.” Nozomu groaned, his expression grim. Homura’s very existence could be considered foul play. Whichever side she decided to join was basically guaranteed an automatic win. Nozomu seriously doubted his father would acknowledge his victory and succession to reginarch if he’d used her power to achieve it.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. He only forbade the use of knowledge from the land beyond the heavens, remember?” Arness replied as he flashed a confident grin.
His response did nothing to ease Nozomu’s anxiety, however. “But he did forbid our moms from helping, and I can’t help but think that I didn’t really earn it,” he said, pursing his lips in dissatisfaction. It wasn’t that he regretted his decision. He would’ve lost miserably without Homura’s help, so he hadn’t been in a position to be choosy. But it did make him resent his own powerlessness.
“You’re overthinking this, man,” Rungr said airily, inserting himself into the conversation. “Father himself practically wrote the book on unfairness. What right does he have to scold his son for not playing fair?”
“For sure. Knowing him, he’d actually commend you for cleverly exploiting a loophole like that,” Arness said.
“Yep. Like I said, he’s a rotten cheater himself.”
“After all he’s done, it’d be the height of hypocrisy for him to blame anyone else for the choice we made.” Arness and Rungr took turns disparaging their father.
“Perhaps they have a point,” Nozomu thought. If the stories he’d heard from everyone about “Suoh-Yuuto” were anything to go by, then it was rather likely they’d get away with using Homura in the manner they had.
“That being said, if he does take you to task, I’m ready to dispute it.”
“Same here. I’ll fight for you, Big Bro,” Arness and Rungr each stated, the pair sporting confident grins.
“Me too.” Even Wiz gripped her fist tightly.
When he recalled how jealous he’d been of all of them, seeing their unwavering love and support made him deeply ashamed, but grateful beyond words. Flawed and incompetent as he was, his siblings not only believed in him, but actively supported him, always toiling to boost his spirits. At first, he had thought he didn’t have anything worth taking pride in, but he now saw that wasn’t true. His beloved siblings—his greatest asset—had been his pride all along.
“Nozomu won, did he? That’s a relief.” When he learned of the outcome of the war from Kristina, Yuuto beamed. If Nozomu was to be king, he would need to inherit the throne without Yuuto’s help. Yuuto had already made that abundantly clear to Nozomu. Yuuto was, after all, an irregular existence within this world— an outright anomaly. Relying on him would never allow Nozomu to nurture the skills he’d require to rule as a great king. With that in mind, he’d forced himself not to get involved, but the truth was he’d been beside himself with worry.
“Hold on a second, Kris. You screwed up,” Yuuto said. “Didn’t you report that there were no signs of Babel using forbidden technology?” Stirrups, compound bows, and even the phalanx formation—none of them were ideas or inventions from this era. The fact that Babel had had them in his possession was like a bolt from the blue for Yuuto. He’d sent his children out based on Kristina’s report, convinced that they had had more than enough chance to claim victory, but the color had drained from his face when he’d heard that Babel’s army was much more formidable than previously assumed.
“I apologize for that. It seems the informants that I had ordered to infiltrate the Steel Clan were paid off by Babel to keep quiet. It was entirely my fault for not checking more thoroughly,” Kristina explained.
“You need to be more careful. You’re too focused on that niece of yours to do your job properly,” Yuuto warned.
“...I know.” She must have been aware of it, because, in a rare display of deference, Kristina hung her head. She was so taken with Yuuto and Albertina’s daughter Clea that she’d been spending every moment of her free time by the child’s side. If anything, “every moment” was a grand understatement, even—in fact, she made time to see Clea, often shortening her own work hours by foisting her responsibilities onto her subordinates so she could secure more hours with her niece. Her infatuation with the child had been the reason for her slipup here. Yuuto had always thought of Kristina as one to prioritize her work above all else, but this gaffe of hers had shown that to be a naive assumption.
That in itself, though, did make Yuuto rather glad on a personal level. For so long, her twin sister Albertina had been the sole recipient of her interest and affection. Yuuto had always found that a bit abnormal and lonesome. Even if it was just her niece, it warmed Yuuto’s heart to see her finally show affection toward someone else.
“They ended up trouncing Babel even with all the cheating he did, huh? I guess the kids are all right after all. I can’t treat them like children anymore, it seems,” Yuuto said.
“They did end up relying on Homura to bring the battle to an end, however,” Kristina pointed out.
“That, too, was only achievable with the strength Nozomu possesses,” Yuuto replied, a boastful grin playing on his lips. At a glance, Nozomu didn’t have any special talents. He wasn’t an idiot by any means, but he was average across the board. However, he did have a certain charm to him—an amiability that made him easy to get along with and that drew others to his side; a winsomeness that made everyone want to support him, to be his strength. To Yuuto, that was the most necessary quality of a king. It was the quality that Nozomu’s stepmother Sigrdrifa had possessed. Even if Nozomu and Sigrdrifa weren’t blood-related, that was something they shared.
Nozomu had a good heart, and he was gentle and sincere. With the conclusion of this battle, Yuuto now had proof that with Nozomu’s siblings at his side, he would be an exemplary reginarch.
“Now then, I know I may be sticking my nose in where I’m not wanted, but we’ve still got one tiny little thing on the agenda. We need to show a certain someone just how terrifying the consequences are for using forbidden knowledge from the land beyond the heavens,” Yuuto said menacingly.
That very day, a cluster of boulders descended from the sky upon Tarshish without warning, pulverizing Babel’s statues and unfinished ziggurats into rubble. The rumor among the populace was that it was divine punishment for Babel attempting to use the knowledge of the gods to reach and invade the domain of heaven itself.
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