Otherworld Nation Founding Chronicles - Chapter 112

Chapter 112

Chapter 112 - The One-Eyed and the Hawk IV

　It has been 3 days since we surrounded the royal capital .

　3 weeks have already passed since the beginning of this war .

　I told Bartolo to hold out for a month . In other words, we have only 1 week left before my time limit runs out .

　Whether or not Bartolo’s efforts will have been meaningful is dependent on what happens here . . .

　”This isn’t good . . . ” (Almus)

　I scratch my head .

　If Bartolo is defeated, the Rozel Army will be able to run amok inside our country . At that point the only thing we could do is surrender .

　I don’t know whether I should feel appalled or impressed by the cold-hearted foresight possessed by the vassal alliance of King Belvedere’s abandoned towns and Patricians; as soon as they caught wind of the Belvedere Army’s crushing defeat at our hands, a majority of them saw the writing on the walls and surrendered to me .

　All that’s left is for King Belvedere himself to surrender .

　That will be difficult though as there is still hope for King Belvedere yet . King Eville is currently invading our country .

　There is a very real possibility that King Eville can defeat us and that’s why King Belvedere won’t give up .

　I must hurry and get both King Belvedere and King Eville to surrender and then go reinforce Bartolo . . .

　”Your Majesty, King Rosyth . ” (Rosyth Soldier)

　”What is it?” (Almus)

　”A message from Lord Bartolo . . . ” (Rosyth Soldier)

　”Give it here!!” (Almus)

　I quickly go to where the soldier’s letter is on a fast horse and tear it open .

　Impatiently, I make a mess opening it .

　[To your majesty, King Rosyth .

　By the time you read this letter, I think I should be in this world no longer . ]

　”WHAT!!!” (Almus)

　[By that I jest . ]

　*Irritation* [1]

　I unconsciously throw the letter to the ground and step on it .

　After that, I hurriedly pick the letter back up, brush of the dirt, and resume reading .

　[I will briefly summarize the current situation . At the present, our army is holding out . Fortunately, there is the well in the royal capital for water and an abundance of food . It seems harvest this year was excellent . There is enough food to last five months if you were to save it . ]

　It seems my biggest fear that we would run out of food in a siege is no longer an issue .

　That’s a relief .

　With that much food, we would be able to feed everyone within the walls of a large city for over a year . And in the case of a siege breaking out, that can be extended to 5 years .

　Though in Bartolo’s case, he’d need 5 months of preparations for a siege that long . . .

　[However, Rozel have called their reinforcements back home . Information from a spy says that Rozel have called back 40,000 of their troops . I am unsure on the details but . . . it seems they are being divided into 4 divisions with the first regiment arriving a week from now . ]

　40,000 is it . . .

　There’s no way our country can stand up to that kind of military power . That kind of power is enviable .

　Though, it seems they will need time to gather that power .

　Four divisions . . . would be about 10,000 soldiers as a conservative estimate I think?

　Which means after one month of gathering manpower, the total number of soldiers could become 50,000?

　[As I previously reported, we have enough food to last us 5 months . That is, if we only took food into account . Morale among my men is swiftly declining . There is fear that I don’t quite understand growing among them . It seems there is a skilled assassin in the enemy ranks who turned one of my army’s centurions into eighths . [2]

　This is certainly one of the causes for this fear . We can hold out for one week; I can guarantee that . However, once the first of the enemy divisions arrives . . . I do not know how long we could endure .

　Two to three weeks is really the time limit on this . Please think over this .

　I request for reinforcements as soon as possible . Also I propose to open diplomatic negotiations with Gillbed and Fardam .

　From, Bartolo Pompeius Mela

　P . S . I will accept the responsibility of my defeat after our victory . ]

　” . . . the responsibility of my defeat” huh . . .

　I don’t feel the need to particularly question this . Whether we win or lose, at this point will all come down to luck .

　It’s not like it’s Bartolo’s fault . Well, after I come in with reinforcements I will revoke the imperium (absolute commanding authority) granted to him . Then I will say he can erase the sin of defeat from this battle in the next one . That should be good enough .

　Losing Bartolo over a single defeat would be ridiculous .

　Well then, it seems like my time limit has been extended to two weeks . . .

　”Hey, Ron . You got any good ideas?” (Almus)

　”Nope . ” (Ron)

　What a splendidly prompt reply . Well, Ron is just the captain of the Praetorian Guard . It can’t be helped . [3]

　I turn my gaze over to Gram . Ah, he turned away .

　I suppose an arrow can’t take down a castle wall, huh .

　”Roswald . How about you?” (Almus)

　”We could always try to get the horses to run up the ramparts . ” (Roswald)

　In other words nothing I suppose .

　I’ll try asking Soyon and Lulu . Maybe I can get a different perspective from magicians .

　”Well, we could try dropping bombs from the sky using hawks . . . that way we could launch an ambush on the enemy . ” (Soyon)

　There are a lot of falcons on the other side too . Carrying the bombs would weigh our hawks down more and would quickly be hunted by the other hawks .

　”Lulu, what are your thoughts?” (Almus)

　”Um . . . how about using the ballistae to launch bomb spears over the wall?” (Lulu)

　”Those huh . While I do want to test that out, the castle gate is strong enough that, unless we hit it multiple times, it won’t break . Moreover, to get within firing range, we would need to enter the enemy’s firing range too . . . ” (Almus)

　Basically, whichever side can extend their firing range will also increase their power .

　Since the laws of physics exists, it can’t be helped .

　If we make any careless attempts, our ballistae will get destroyed .

　”Sieging a castle sure is tough . . . it can’t be helped . ” (Almus)

　Should I call for Alexios?

　”Alexios . Do you have any plans? I don’t have much time to spare . I want the castle to fall as fast as possible . ” (Almus)

　I called Alexios to hear his opinion .

　Alexios is a foreigner . Moreover, he isn’t even originally from our ally, Lezzad . He’s a Povenian . [4]

　The other vassals must be upset that an Aldernian king is so simply asking the opinion of a Povenian (and not them) .

　It’s hard being popular . . . just kidding .

　That kind of discord is only going to invite distrust towards me which could factor into the collapse of the country .

　I’d like to avoid that as much as possible .

　However, I’m more worried about the country collapsing because of Rozel rather than from internal discord at the moment .

　After all, you can’t make an omelette without cracking some eggs . [5]

　”Actually, those were my thoughts exactly . I’ve asked my wife to look into something for me . Melia!” (Alexios)

　”Yes . Here your highness . I interrogated some of the prisoners of war about the structure of the walls and had magicians from Lezzad examine it as well . Some of it includes speculation on my part well but . . . ” (Melia)

　I receive the paper from the woman known as Melia . It seems she is Alexios’ wife .

　They are quite the good-looking couple .

　According to a rumor, these two had eloped to the Aldernian peninsula .

　Well, it’s fine if they’re happy in the end I suppose? There seem to be a common pattern those attempting to elope . Romeo and Juliet for example .

　Thinking this, I unravel the paper .

　This is quite the detailed map .

　To be able to finish this in 3 days . . . Melia seems to be very skilled .

　However, the more I look at the map, the more I see there is no weakness I can exploit .

　And I start to understand the fragility of my own country’s walls .

　I hand the map back to Melia and ask her a question .

　”So, do you have a plan?” (Almus)

　”I’m sure you have come the same conclusion but the castle’s structure is very strong . A frontal attack on it would probably take years . It seems King Belvedere has previously prepared a stockpile of food in the event of a siege . ” (Melia)

　I know you want to say somthing so say it .

　Get to the point already!!

　”In short, the siege will take us a year . It could take maybe 3 weeks should many things go in our favour I think? If we dig under the castle walls, they should come down easily . However, the enemy has probably already anticipated this possibility as they most likely dug a tunnel under the walls as a counter to this . ” (Alexios)

　 . . . Even Alexios is saying that this is impossible .

　This is impossible for me as well .

　But if we let this be, it will mean the end of the country . . .

　”Peace is a beautiful thing . It is fortunate that King Belvedere is a coward . If he is threatened, he will yield . ” (Alexios)

　”But if they are able to endure, how can we win? How do we break King Belvedere?” (Almus)

　In the first place, there is no way someone who can win a drawn-out war would just capitulate from one short decisive battle .

　Time is on King Belvedere’s side .

　”That’s not what I’m saying here . The northern and central patricians and cities have formed an anti-King Belvedere alliance right? Given time, more will rise up and join that alliance . That king will probably panic . What’s more is that King Eville can’t tell if the Rosyth Kingdom is at its breaking point . If we push him into a corner just a bit, King Belvedere should capitulate . This all really depends on him capitulating . ” (Alexios)

　”And what do you mean by ‘push him into a corner’ exactly?” (Almus)

　”Specifically the plan is to . . . ” (Alexios)

　Alexios shows an nasty(evil) looking face as he explains his plan to me .

　A catapult roars as it fires pots into the sky .

　The high-powered Cretian-made catapult launches those pots over and lands it inside the walls .

　”The pots contain human excrement, broken corpses, gunpowder, a kind of container with 50/50 gunpowder and oil inside . . . how crude . ” (Almus)

　Well, using excrement and corpses is a valid tactic in siege warfare .

　”All that’s left is the letter I suppose . It would be bad if I forgot that . ” (Almus)

　In a pot with a corpse I also put in a letter .

　I put in four different kinds of letters .

　First is information on the captured prisoners of war .

　Second is information on the identities of the dead .

　Third is false information that Bartolo and his Allied Army look to be winning .

　Fourth is a recommendation for surrender .

　A letter is light enough that a hawk could be used to scatter them from the sky .

　Unfortunately they have as many hawk users as we do .

　”Still, will they really capitulate with this?” (Almus)

　”They won’t . But the pressure on them will increase . It is because many Cretians live in the Belvedere Kingdom . ” (Alexios)

　In other words, there are many people who can read the letters .

　I’m sure King Belvedere will give out an order that forbids people from picking up the letters . . .

　There is information on family who survived written .

　They will be compelled to pick them up .

　”Well, for now, how about we talk with Ains and Gehenna’s representative . ” (Almus)

　Presently, the one who holds the highest authority is myself . The reason being is that Lezzad and Gehenna’s support came in the form of reinforcements .

　Moreover, I do have to keep up appearances .

　We need the specifics on what happens postwar especially . Then we need to discuss King Belvedere’s terms for surrender .

　Author’s note:

　Next will really be the end (of Belvedere) .

　Translator’s note:

　Hope you enjoyed this chapter . Fairly easy to translate this time . Not too many difficult sentences so I’m happy .

[1] It originally said [イラッ] for those who were wondering . It’s the Japanese onomatopoeia for getting irritated . There is no good english equivalent for this so I just put that Almus gets upset . Rightly so I might add; not funny Bartolo . (Ok maybe kinda funny) 

[2] The original term was [百人隊長] which the previous author used “kentarch” as the translation for . While this is the correct translation from Japanese to English, I want to use “centurion” from now on as it is much more “Roman” sounding . For those who are curious the main the difference between the two terms are mostly linguistic and historic . A kentarch was a Byzantine (who were mostly Greek which would be the Cretians in this setting) commanding officer who commanded an army of 100 . A centurion, on the other hand, commands an army of 80 heavy infantry under the Roman Empire . The Byzantines were also called the (Eastern) Roman Empire but, in this case just pretend that a centurion is the same as a kentarch and commands an army of 100 instead of 80 . I can change it back if you guys really want me to but I thought “kentarch” sounded too Greek (which again, it is) .  

[3] Yay more Roman terminology! So the Praetorian Guard were the imperial guards of the Roman Empire who also served as military police if I’m not mistaken . Since the Japanese said [近衛隊長] which translates to “imperial guard captain,” I decided to call this imperial guard what its Roman equivalent . Also I could call Ron’s position specifically the “praetorian prefect” but I was afraid I would only confuse people since most people do not have dictionary knowledge of Roman army composition and titles . Unlike centurion, praetorian prefect is not a very well known position . If you don’t mind this let me know so if/when this title comes back I’ll just use “Praetorian Prefect” as his official title .  

[4] Upon thinking about it, Pothenia, Poffenia, or Pophenia don’t quite look or sound as good as Povenia . Until I find a better translation for ポフェニア, I am going with Povenia .  

[5] The omelette in question is victory over Rozel and the eggs is the trust his vassals have in Almus . They’re being broken because Almus is relying on a foreigner for war support and not his vassals . Just to clarify in case of confusion .  

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