Wortenia Senki (LN) - Volume 20 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Southern Battlefield

Black smoke rose, blowing crimson sparks into the night air.

“Get water! We need to put out the fire!”

“No good, it’s spreading too fast!”

The screaming of women and the voices of men trying to calm them down echoed all over. But a group on horseback rode about without regard for their voices, the rumbling of their hooves resounding as they tossed bottle-shaped ceramic vases at every building they happened upon.

The sound of breaking ceramic reverberated throughout the night. The ceramic vases were full of oil and were corked with burning rags. Each time the riders threw them against the walls, the wooden building burst into flames, and the intensity of the fire grew.

“It’s burning! The town of Thelmis is burning!”

It was a scream of agony and grief seeing the hometown where they were born and raised burn to ashes. But it was also full of fear and alarm at having been forced into this unexpected situation.

“It’s no good! We have to give up and run!”

Anger, sorrow, grief, and resignation were among the countless emotions that mingled with the dancing flames. Under the pale moonlight, the villagers sought a way to escape the infernal sight.

This world was far harsher than modern society as people lived far closer to death, and life meant little. Tragedies on the scale of bandit and monster attacks wiping out entire villages weren’t rare or unheard of. In this regard, the tragedy of Thelmis was just one of many taking place every day across the western continent.

Still, it was unusual for a medium-sized town protected by barrier pillars and walls reinforced by thaumaturgy to sustain damage like this. Even on this monster-infested, war-torn continent, no force had ever attacked the town of Thelmis like this since its founding three hundred years ago. The then King of Rhoadseria ordered the first Viscount Romaine to establish it, and the town had stood firm in the three centuries since.

That persistence wasn’t due to luck. Thelmis stood right between the citadel city of Heraklion—the country’s largest grain-producing area—and the town of Galatia, which stood at the Rhoadserian border with the southern kingdoms. As a result, Thelmis was a relay hub for the Heraklion-Galatia route.

For that reason, Thelmis had relatively strong defenses despite being a medium-sized town by definition. It didn’t have a moat, but its defenses were made of stone, while most towns and villages had wooden palisades.

The governor of Thelmis, Viscount Romaine, had another town in his domain—his main stronghold in the city of Prolegia—as well as over ten villages. Besides the two hundred troops of the local militia, the viscounty also stationed fifty or so knights to defend Thelmis.

Had this been a domain near the border with a rival country, this would have been understandable. But Thelmis was well within Rhoadserian territory, with its position considered secure and its garrison unusually large. Even if a bandit group that numbered in the hundreds were to attack the town, this garrison would easily repel them.

Even for a respected noble family like the Romaine viscounty, keeping a force this large stationed there at all times was a financial burden. This just went to show that the tax income from Thelmis was big enough to return the investment that went into protecting it.

Such was precisely why the citizens of Thelmis never could have imagined a tragedy like what happened to their town tonight could take place. Reality was cruel, however. Just past midnight, the tightly locked city gates were forced open, and flames began spreading throughout Thelmis. The knights who forced the gate open began setting fire to the buildings.

There were roughly five to six hundred knights, and worse yet, all were capable of martial thaumaturgy. Their horses raced like the wind, and they handled them perfectly. It was like a storm of violence that exceeded human understanding. Mere humans lacked the power to oppose it, and many of the civilians could only watch in helpless amazement.

Some, however, picked up arms to defend themselves.

“Don’t just stand there! Take up a sword or a spear! We have to fight them off!”

Civilians in this world had to be capable of defending themselves. With law enforcement having very little power here, people could only rely on themselves when faced with crisis or absurdity, and everyone had some weapon or another in their home. The citizens were weak, but they were not entirely incapable of retaliating.

Emboldened by that one civilian’s words, the nearby men picked up whatever weapons they could find and stood in the knights’ way. The two groups faced each other on the main streets, dividing Thelmis on its west and east sides. But just as both sides glared at each other, one man revealed himself from among the knights.

He was a large-built man with blond hair, brandishing a black staff in his hand. As the civilians looked at him with hatred and animosity, the blond man announced, “I’m very sorry I have to say this, but your town will soon burn to the ground. However, we don’t intend to kill any civilians. If you don’t want to die, leave through the northern gate and run to Heraklion. We promise not to do you any harm.”

With that said, the blond man looked around with a composed expression. His words carried an attacker’s haughty confidence and the calm finality of an ultimatum. But perhaps this was the best show of kindness he could have made.

His lord had only ordered him to burn down the food and supplies in this town to strain the enemy army’s supply line but not to needlessly torment the citizens of Thelmis. If the need called for it, the man wouldn’t hesitate to burn the city down and kill its citizens, yet he wasn’t a mad killer starving for blood.

The menacing air hanging about the man made the citizens freeze up. His sharp gaze didn’t permit any objections from the civilians. Instead, they were transfixed in place like prey being glared at by a predator. But while this was true of most of them, a few civilians were an exception.

“Are you joking?! I can’t just leave this city. My whole life is here!” a civilian exclaimed and charged at the man with a spear in hand.

Of course, he had no chance at victory. His anger at seeing his home destroyed made him lose all sense of reason and go on this reckless charge, effectively allowing him to shake off the menacing air the man had released. However, nothing but death would be the reward for his bravery.

The blond man then swung his staff, which whirled through the air with a howl, delivering a blow that instantly caved in the poor villager’s head. It crushed his skull and splattered his brain. Blood splashed into the air, and it rendered everyone watching speechless with horror.

They could all imagine themselves meeting the same fate as their hands trembled in fear while gripping their weapons. But the blond man only glared at them, ensuring no one else resisted, then swung his staff again to shake off the blood and flesh sticking to its tip. He then raised a hand to signal his subordinates to follow and kicked his horse into motion, as if to say they had no time to waste here. They acted like everything was over, but no one dared to stop them. The villagers could only watch as the horsemen rode off and the crimson flames cast their glow upon their faces.

In the granary established in Thelmis’ northwestern corner, a man was on his knees, looking at the burning warehouse in dismay. He wore metallic armor, which implied he wasn’t from this town. All around him were the corpses of the Thelmis militia, their armor crushed. It seemed the man was their commander based on how they were scattered around him.

In this situation his status as a commander or general didn’t matter. Even a knight capable of martial thaumaturgy couldn’t stop the fire burning through the warehouse. All he could think of was the gold and silver emblem of a two-headed snake coiled around a sword. The snake’s red eyes glinted menacingly from atop the banner of the cavaliers who set fire to this warehouse.

They had no intention of hiding who sent them, as only a single noble house used this banner in the whole western continent. But as far as the man knew, this attack should have been impossible.

“Why? How is the Mikoshiba barony’s army marching on us?!” That question alone filled the man’s thoughts. The shock of seeing the banner was overwhelming, and he thought he had seen it wrong at first. “But there’s no mistaking it... The man leading those cavaliers was Signus Galveria!”

Galveria, along with Robert Bertrand and his long-shafted battle-ax, made up the duo of heroes praised as Count Salzberg’s Twin Blades. Rumors of them had even reached the kingdom’s south, and their appearances and distinctive weapons were well-known.

And to begin with, there can’t be that many monsters on their level out there, right?!

The cavaliers stormed in, several hundred in number. Viscount Romaine maintained a small force of knights to help defend the city, and the garrison of Thelmis was a sizable two hundred men. But they were no match for the Mikoshiba barony’s cavaliers, who had all gained the power of martial thaumaturgy.

While the man was frustrated at this defeat, he could make peace with it as a warrior. He could fall back on the excuse of how their opponents clearly outnumbered them. But reality was much crueler than that, because all the soldiers lying dead around him now were dispatched single-handedly by Signus Galveria.

Each time he effortlessly swung his staff, it crushed the flesh and bones of this man’s subordinates. The cavalry unit’s mission was only to set fire to the granary, and this tragedy came about at the hands of only one man.

Not every one of Thelmis’ knights and militia had gathered there to oppose him, but there were still nearly thirty knights and a hundred militiamen. Very few men across Rhoadseria would have been able to slay this many soldiers, and most warriors of that caliber were fighting in the northern subjugation.

In other words, only two men could have possibly created this bloody scene: Robert Bertrand and Signus Galveria.

But how does that make sense? How in the blasted hell did they send an army all the way to Thelmis from the far north? 

As one of Viscount Romaine’s knights, this man received news of the goings-on in the northern subjugation. He heard the army took significant losses when the enemy razed the citadel city of Epirus. Other such news was that the siege of the fort built in the Tilt Mountains was in a stalemate, meaning they hadn’t set foot in the Mikoshiba barony’s domain yet.

Since Viscount Romaine took his conscripts with him to battle, they occasionally sent letters back, which was how this information reached as far as Thelmis. But they still charged this man with defending the town in southern Rhoadseria, far away from the fighting. The Mikoshiba barony’s army shouldn’t have been able to reach this town because that would have meant that they had defeated the northern subjugation army and seized control of the country. And if that were to happen, the capital would have sent some kind of message by now.

Even if the capital couldn’t send a message for whatever reason, there were dozens of noble houses between Thelmis and Pireas. An army shouldn’t have been able to slip by all of them and sneak up on Thelmis like this.

To begin with, wasn’t the northern subjugation about to go on the offensive?!

The food stored in this granary was the mountain of supplies gathered by the trade companies stationed in Thelmis from the surrounding villages to support the large-scale offensive they were about to embark on. Gathering the absurd amount of food requested in the official directive sent to Thelmis required resorting to forceful measures that likely earned them the ire of those they bought these supplies from. But if it would enable the northern subjugation army to win the war, they were willing to take on such risks.

To know that the one who had issued that order was Mikhail Vanash, who was given full authority in the queen’s absence from the capital, bothered the commander somewhat. Even so, the directive was an official order. His direct lord, Viscount Romaine, had also sent a letter saying they were about to go on the offensive, so the local commander had no choice but to comply.

However, the attackers had reduced his devoted effort and loyalty to ashes before his very eyes. As he realized what had happened, the granary began falling apart from the fire consuming it, and a piece of burning lumber fell over the man. The man didn’t budge—the tragedy of Signus Galveria had already crushed his soul to nothing. Before long, an impact struck his head, and his consciousness faded away.

Soon after that moment, the man’s body was buried in the burning wood and disappeared.

Two kilometers east of Thelmis, a pair of men met at the foot of a medium-sized hill and spoke. In their hands were binoculars, enchanted with endowed thaumaturgy to allow them to see even in the dark of night. Such a thing didn’t originally exist in this world, of course, but there was nothing unusual about it for the two men. Even if they had never used it, they had seen it through comics and fiction.

They fixed their eyes in Thelmis’s general direction as well as the cavaliers riding east and west from it.

“So that’s Signus Galveria, indeed. He truly is a menacing monster...” said one of the men.

“Few people within the Organization can face him properly. He’s on the level of a Hunting Dogs captain,” the other replied.

“Yes, at the very least... We, at least, can’t hope to fight him.”

People summoned from Ryoma’s world had a higher prana absorption rate when killing other life-forms, which granted them an advantage over people native to this world. One could say that the amount of prana they would gain from killing one person was equivalent to what a native human would gain by killing ten people.

Conversely, a man from Ryoma’s world who only killed one man couldn’t match a human native to this world who absorbed the prana of tens of thousands. Even people from the other world also had individual differences in their mana absorption, and their prana absorption rate or chakras didn’t solely decide their strength. Those were important factors in determining one’s strength, but they were only one factor.

These two men knew they were no match for Signus, but this wasn’t because they could gauge his strength properly. The power and skill he had exhibited in Thelmis were abnormal, but one could have pinned that on the fact the town’s garrison was too weak. They were the guards of a medium-sized, peaceful town far from the front lines that thought they could fill that role.

But Signus was a warrior only a few in this entire country could match. A single swing from his staff would claim the lives of most men, as demonstrated by how the fights before had ended with a single blow. Because of this, the men could tell he was strong but couldn’t measure just how powerful he was.

The other man met his partner’s words with a glance and a shake of the head.

“We have little choice and have to report what we’ve seen,” the first man said.

“Right... We just need to follow our orders.”

They were both operatives of the Organization and had two tasks here. The first was to supply the Mikoshiba barony troops moving up the Thebes River with war steeds. The second was to observe the army after delivering the horses and report on the quality of the soldiers and their commanders.

For the first task, the only complication was that the magistrate in Heraklion, from whom they received the horses, scolded them for changing the delivery date without warning. But for their second task, they needed to make a rather silly-sounding report.

After all, every soul in Rhoadseria knew that Signus was a skilled warrior and saying it would just be repeating the obvious. But they couldn’t very well mobilize the Organization’s trump card, the Hunting Dogs, just for the sake of appraising how strong he was.

“You know, when we asked Heraklion’s magistrate to deliver the horses, I wondered why he was willing to side with us here, but... Yeah, if he has a monster like this guy on his side, I can understand why he wouldn’t want to make an enemy of that Mikoshiba kid.”

“Apparently Zheng, Liu Daijin’s assistant, applied pressure on him. And if that’s true, it only makes sense he’d cooperate,” added the other man

The first man grimaced unpleasantly and replied, “The rumor about that one commander who disappeared years ago turning up again? I’ve heard about it, but do you really believe that made-up story?”

This was something of a rumor spreading among the Organization’s members, but most doubted its credibility. It was just too absurd to take seriously, but the other man gave a surprising answer.

“Personally, I think there’s some truth to it.”

The first man pulled away from his binoculars and looked at his partner with surprise and replied, “Are you being real? From what I hear, the commander that turned up again disappeared into the dimensional void fifty years ago when the return spell was activated. If that story is true, why wouldn’t the higher-ups tell us about it?”

For a member of the Organization, that story came across as utter nonsense. It was like a free diver saying they explored the bottom of the Mariana Trench or someone saying they dived into an active volcano naked and swam through lava.

A person returning from the dimensional void was unthinkable, and it wasn’t even worth questioning its possibility. It was the kind of exaggerated idea that wouldn’t even come up in a children’s cartoon, completely lacking in reality.

To this man, even if it was just a rumor, he’d expect whoever made it up to at least try to make it slightly more believable. But to the Organization and its members, the dimensional void was the biggest obstacle on their way back home to their own Earth, and establishing a way to cross it safely was their biggest goal. It was because they couldn’t surmount that wall that they had to live in this hell of a world.

So if what his partner said was right and the rumor was true, then the Organization’s top brass surely would have said something about it by now. His partner denied that idea, though.

“Even if he could make it back, there’s no point if they can’t recreate the method by which he did it. So they’d keep it secret, right? And putting aside whether the rumor is true, the top brass did decide to side with the Mikoshiba kid all of a sudden. And if they did it because an old leader that’s related to him showed up, that explains why they did it.”

He was quite close to the truth, and if Zheng and Veronica had heard what he just said, they would have surely gone pale with surprise. They would then have him swear to hold his tongue, if not silence him altogether.

Thankfully, they weren’t there to listen to this conversation. Hearing his partner’s explanation, the first man laughed and said, “Don’t you think that’s kind of a leap in logic? It’s a little too good to be true, isn’t it? I’ll admit the top brass seem to side with the kid an awful lot. But they’re only doing it because the Organization stands to profit from it, you know?”

“Well, that’s true, but...” his partner had to nod in agreement. He wasn’t fully convinced about his theory either.

The two of them finished their talk, put away their binoculars, and straddled their horses, which were tied to a nearby tree.

“Anyway, let’s get back and report in!”

“Yeah. I imagine the group that was scouting Robert is back already.”

“And we should be getting intel about the other woman too... Once we have enough info on her, we report it to the top.”

The men had been ordered to investigate the strength of Robert Bertrand and Signus Galveria. Both had witnessed a mysterious woman when they delivered the horses, but they weren’t told to look into her. In that regard, perhaps they didn’t need to examine any further.

But something felt off about her. This was perhaps the first man’s sixth sense at work. As such, he had his comrades gather information about this woman. He added, “Let’s go!”

The two then kicked their horses into a gallop and began riding back to camp to report what they found to the Organization. But the two of them didn’t know that the truth was closer than they knew.

When their comrades reported the woman’s identity to them, the two men were shocked at what they’d learned.

†

It had been a few days since Signus burned down the town of Thelmis. The top of a nearby small mountain was a short distance from Heraklion, southern Rhoadseria’s largest agricultural center. Below it spanned the highway leading to the capital, Epirus.

The highway was full of countless carriages with food and supplies gathered from Heraklion’s region that headed north. A mixed unit composed of the surrounding nobles’ domains and knights based in Heraklion of roughly five thousand men guarded this supply unit.

Their expressions were all tense, especially that of the supply unit’s captain, as they knew the supplies they carried would decide the outcome of the fierce battle in the north. Another thing they knew was that the Mikoshiba barony’s soldiers had reached these southern lands to sever the northern subjugation army’s supply line, waiting for a chance to stop them.

Fortunately, they prepared thoroughly for this possibility and sent scout units ahead in every direction to confirm they were safe. However, standing on the top of the mountain overlooking the supply unit was a group of three men and women.

“It all went as you said,” Robert told the woman beside him. “I can see why the lord was counting on you. You’re one cunning vixen of a woman.”

Despite his crude tone being something that most women would likely frown upon, he didn’t intend to insult her. Yet the woman didn’t seem to take offense to it, and being called a vixen only made her bring a hand to her lips with an amused smile.

She was Ecclesia Marinelle, a general of the Kingdom of Myest and the one dispatched on this mission as its commander.

“Oh, I think you’re overestimating me. But I will say ‘vixen’ is a cuter nickname than ‘the Whirlwind,’” she said with confidence.

The other man, Signus, scolded his partner, “Hey, Robert, show some respect. Lady Ecclesia is an important figure dispatched from Myest to help us.”

His warning was natural as Ecclesia was the King of Myest’s niece. She had a claim to the throne, albeit a very weak one, which meant she was a woman of lofty status. Robert, however, laughed off his remark as if his friend baffled him.

“You just don’t get it, Robert.”

“I don’t get what?”

“We’re not talking to General Ecclesia Marinelle of Myest, are we? After all, the Kingdom of Myest made a pact with Queen Lupis.”

Signus grimaced at Robert’s suggestive comment. He was right, and if Ecclesia were to join their army as Myest’s general, it would create a major diplomatic scandal. Ecclesia herself agreed with Robert’s assertion.

“He’s quite right. I’m nothing but a Myestian mercenary by the name of Ecclesia at the moment. I simply happen to share my name with Myest’s general. But it’s nothing but pure coincidence, so both of you can feel free to regard me casually,” she said, closing one eye and flashing a jesting, mischievous smirk.

No one would side with Signus on this matter, it seemed. He sighed, gave a light shrug, and said, “Very well... All right then, Ecclesia the mercenary. Do we carry things out according to your plan?”

His approach with a “mere mercenary” was still a bit too formal, but no one corrected him. Ecclesia had no intention of commenting on his attitude toward her any longer.

“Yes, the preparations are complete.” Ecclesia nodded in response. “I’ll be counting on you two to pull your weight. We’re facing a force three times our size, after all.” A smile then overtook her beautiful features. “Our prey has peeked their heads out of their hole. Now the hunt begins, and I’ll be working you two to the bone.”

“Yeah, my axe arm’s already twitching.”

“We’ll do all in our power to answer your expectations.”

Robert and Signus nodded respectfully, but they both had the same ferocious smile of predators who’d just eyed their prey. A beautiful fox led these ravenous wolves that licked their lips expectantly. The weapons in their hands cried out for the crimson lifeblood of their foes all the while.

Several hours later, the supply unit arrived at the banks of the Thebes River.

“So far, so good...” said the captain of the supply unit.

Their faces were full of relief because they’d usually send the supply unit out after wiping out the Mikoshiba barony unit. Tales of how pressed the northern subjugation army was for food reached them through letters the soldiers sent to their families. Given the dire circumstances, the capital and the magistrate of Heraklion had to dispatch the supply convoy as quickly as possible.

Thankfully, the Mikoshiba barony army has its sights set on Heraklion’s south right now.

Yesterday, the Mikoshiba barony army raided the towns and villages around Heraklion and burned down their food reserves. It was a painful blow, but all the towns attacked were south of the city.

It was safe to assume they were hitting the towns one by one while moving north. Indeed, each village had its food stored in the large towns in each area and handed it off to Heraklion once it reached a fixed amount. Even a major city like Heraklion didn’t have enough food to feed an army of two hundred thousand kept in one place. It was a problem both in terms of storage space and crisis management.

And I find it hard to believe the enemy will do something as reckless as attack Heraklion.

In that regard, hitting the surrounding cities, which were much less defended, made much more sense. Thelmis was a town that invested a great deal of effort into its defense. Yet it was still an easier target when compared to a citadel city like Heraklion. And so, the magistrate of Heraklion decided to use the Mikoshiba army’s plans against them.

In other words, he discarded the towns to the south of Heraklion so they would serve as bait for the Mikoshiba barony army. If they took the bait, he could use that time to send the supply unit to the capital. And to that end, he had the soldiers he gathered from the surrounding towns guard the supply unit rather than search for the enemy army.

Given time, he could devise many other plans. But as more and more messengers arrived, demanding that the supply unit be dispatched at once, he had no other choice. Seeing that most soldiers were part of the northern subjugation army, they had very few available men to work with. In this regard, the magistrate’s choice was apt.

At the very least, those starved beasts wouldn’t attack their army as long as they had prey to feed on. This was why the commander of the supply unit obeyed those orders without question. And so far, the gamble seemed to pay off.

“For now, let’s hurry up and cross the Thebes... So long as we cross the river, we should be able to rest easily,” the captain added.

The great Thebes River divided Rhoadseria in two and was the biggest obstacle from Heraklion to the capital, Pireas. To this end, the commander sent an advance unit ahead to secure a crossing point and acquire boats from the surrounding towns and villages. There were also multiple harbors set along the flow of the Thebes to ensure they could cross the river as soon as possible.

All of this was done to ensure they would safely cross this difficult point. But the captain’s wish would go ungranted, in the most cruel way possible.

It happened just as the first group of boats had finished boarding and were preparing to set sail. Suddenly, the captain heard battle cries, and countless arrows were aimed at the boats and fired from the shrubbery behind the crossing point.

“Fire arrows!”

The arrows hit the sails and hulls of the boats, sprouting smoke and flames wherever they struck. Since a bit of water could put out those flames, the unknown archers fired many arrows and overwhelmed the boats so they would burn. In all likelihood, these weren’t ordinary fire arrows either.

The boats burned, billowing out black smoke. These conditions made the soldiers try to quickly extinguish the fires, but there were too many fire arrows to stop the hulls and sails from catching fire.

“It can’t be! An enemy attack?!”

The unexpected sight rendered the captain speechless. In this world, people absorbed the life force of any life-form they killed, which they could convert into their own power through martial thaumaturgy. Distance greatly influenced prana absorption, and because of that, use of bows and arrows was not popular.

If one were to hypothesize that killing an opponent with a melee weapon like a sword or spear grants its killer one hundred prana, the prana they would gain for shooting an enemy to death from afar would be fewer than ten. Depending on the situation, it could go as low as one prana. Such was the primary reason people rarely used verbal thaumaturgy or bows and arrows in this world’s warfare.

However, this was mostly true for the knight class, which emphasized mastering thaumaturgy, and in terms of tactics, being able to attack from afar without being counterattacked was a clear advantage. This was why most countries employed a court thaumaturgist, and had units of verbal thaumaturgists, and bows and arrows were commonly used in siege battles.

Because of this, the captain was somewhat familiar with bows. But what he saw take place before his eyes bashed his common sense against the rocks.

“Just how far are they shooting those arrows?! Their arrows shouldn’t possibly hit at this distance!” the captain exclaimed.

The distance between the shooters and the boats was seven hundred to eight hundred meters at a minimum. They were far enough away that the captain couldn’t see them with the naked eye. But that shouldn’t have been possible. As far as the captain knew, a bow’s range was two hundred to three hundred meters, yet these arrows flew nearly three times that range.

Of course, getting an arrow to get that far wasn’t entirely impossible. Martial thaumaturgy reinforced one’s brute strength, allowing one to draw the strings of bows that ordinary men wouldn’t be capable of using. However, that only happened when highly skilled warriors, who were few in number, used the finest bows that were difficult to come by. And right now, there were enough arrows raining down to blot out the sky.

And the nightmare didn’t end there. A cavalry unit was riding in from afar, knocking away the fences built around the crossing point and charging into their formation. And the moment the captain saw the torches in their hands, he shouted in alarm.

“Oh, no! Cavaliers! Stop the cavaliers! They’re trying to set fire to the food! Stop them!”

But the soldiers were still shocked by the fire arrows and incapable of reacting normally. They weren’t sure whether to focus on putting out the fires or blocking the enemy. This wasn’t a state where they could exhibit their usual prowess. Even if they could, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome because two beasts in human form, known as the Twin Blades, led the cavalry unit.

The two men leading the charge howled in unison. It was like the roaring of beasts, and as they shouted, they also swung their long-handled weapons in sweeping motions.

One of them swung a large axe that cut through flesh, and the other wielded a metallic staff that shattered the skulls of whomever it hit. They rode with nothing stopping them like they were advancing through an open road. And following in their wake were one thousand cavaliers.

Their charge had all the penetrating and destructive force of a giant battering ram, and no brave heroes stood in their way. Even if there were, they would meet the same end.

“Burn it all! Burn everything!” Robert shouted while spinning his war axe overhead with his face drenched in the enemy’s blood, which he didn’t seem to mind.

The same was true of Signus, who was typically Robert’s voice of reason. But the fact he was usually more restrained and sound of mind meant that once he cut loose, he became even more violent and unhinged than his partner.

Signus looked like a demon who rode straight out of hell. Blood and chunks of flesh belonging to the unfortunate soldiers he slew covered his armor. He delivered powerful, blunt blows strong enough to smash his opponents’ bodies beyond recognition—a terrible way to die.

But the supply unit’s tragedy did not end there. The cavalry behind Robert and Signus used the opening the men had created to ride in, their steeds’ hooves rattling the ground. It was a force of one thousand, plus another five hundred who seemed like they originally were cavalry archers. They were likely the ones who fired the fire arrows earlier, but now they brandished spears, thrusting them at whoever was in their path.

Ecclesia, who was at the back of the line, took command and yelled, “There’s no need to take prisoners. Kill them all!”

A cold, ruthless order, but no one objected to it. The soldiers would slay their enemies as ordered since they knew this was the safest way to ensure their survival and that of their allies. After all, they were deep in enemy territory, far from their stronghold and home base in Sirius. Even if they took prisoners, they wouldn’t be able to manage their imprisonment properly.

To begin with, Ecclesia and her group were at a significant numerical disadvantage. They were able to keep the enemy army confused thanks to their barrage of arrows and having two monsters like Robert and Signus leading the charge. But once they regained their composure, the situation could easily swing in the enemy’s favor.

The soldiers fighting on the front lines understood this better than anyone, and Ecclesia wanted to minimize losses as much as possible.

But even if the enemies regain their composure, these men aren’t likely to lose. When comparing them to the soldiers on the other side, the outcome of this battle seemed clear. It’s like a bunch of children fighting a group of adults.

This was her appraisal, with the Mikoshiba barony soldiers being the adults and the Rhoadserian soldiers being the children.

How in the world did he train soldiers like these?

As the Kingdom of Myest’s general, Ecclesia had commanded many soldiers over the years, and her experience told her that the quality of the Mikoshiba barony’s army was of an excellent standard. It wasn’t because of anything as simple as all its soldiers being capable of martial thaumaturgy. That was fearsome in and of itself, but what made them truly impressive was how every soldier was knowledgeable and capable of thinking on their feet.

The soldiers’ literacy rate was one hundred percent and not just limited to writing their names. They could all read books, a privilege usually reserved for only the wealthiest of nobles and commoners. Knowing that the Mikoshiba barony’s soldiers were capable of this was astounding. One could go so far as to say that their rank-and-file soldiers were all trained and educated to the same extent as knights were in Rhoadseria.

Even the army of Ecclesia’s homeland, the Kingdom of Myest, hadn’t achieved that much. Victory seemed guaranteed with those two monsters, Robert and Signus, leading proficient soldiers. And with this, we’ll have achieved our goal. All that will be left is to wait and see how that man performs.

Ecclesia then looked on with a composed smile as screams, battle cries, and black smoke hung over the battlefield.

†

A few hours later, the curtain of night descended over the world and the stench of roasting flesh hung in the air. It was by no means an appetizing scent, as it was the smell of soldiers’ flesh burning.

But to the three beasts that spawned this tragedy, the scent was familiar.

“So this is how it ends...” Ecclesia said.

“Yeah. All according to plan,” responded Robert as he nodded and looked around.

Regardless of the direction he turned, he saw burning tents, wagons, and corpses. The battle had been decided, and the only other thing in sight was the wharf burning and billowing with embers.

“Well, they only sent second-rate soldiers here. Dealing with them wasn’t a problem,” Signus said with his usual, serene smile.

“Yes. With this, the supplies cannot reach their destination, and as that man planned, the northern subjugation army will face hell. So we have to get moving soon,” Ecclesia said.

Robert and Signus nodded, then gathered their army and began their march north onto their next battlefield.

Before long, the boats all burned away and sank to the bottom of the river, and only then did the Thebes truly regain its silence. This event was a prelude to the hardships the northern subjugation army would face.