Chapter 386
(Kyle Calendar Year 515: Age 22)
Northern Front ㉓ – Inducing the Secret Scheme
Translator : PolterGlast
The 500 soldiers
who attended the King of Ville broke through the containment net of the Royal
Knights laid down by Darek in a desperate frenzy. To state the
reality with absolute precision: Darek had simply chosen to purposefully
leave a localized breach open within his formations. Rather than executing a stubborn, rigid containment that
would force his own elite riders to stand in their way and absorb unnecessary
casualties, he preferred to open the cage just enough to ruthlessly strike
the retreating enemies from behind as they stampeded through the opening.
「 Eroll! Lead 1,000 cavalry
under your command and strike down the spineless cowards who abandoned
their allies and fled! Ensure your blades do not hold back—a highly customized,
unexpected prize might be hiding amidst that rabble! 」
「 By your command, Sire! 」
Receiving Darek's orders,
Eroll drove his spurs home and fiercely pursued the unit of the King
of Ville attempting a frantic escape. Perhaps his veteran heart harbored an
unadulterated disgust at the sight of a king
who could abandon his own allies and flee at this late stage, but his tactical
pursuit was merciless. Attempting to escape while
faced with double their number in cavalry, the fugitives were accompanied by
sluggish, heavy treasury wagons fully loaded with plundered gold and wealth
stolen from the occupied territories; their pace
was catastrophically slowed, and they
were struck down one after another from behind. Though the absolute baseline
trajectory of the clash was already clear, because there were also soldiers
who, whether out of a pledge of absolute loyalty or conscientiousness,
desperately attempted suicidal resistance to protect their lord, Eroll
could not loosen the reins of his violence either. And then…… The
conscientious, hyper-loyal ones were
completely erased from the dirt, while the rest casually abandoned their lord
and scattered like chaff before the wind.
「 Is there no one?! Is there no human
soul to…… save me! 」
Having reached the absolute nadir of his existence, forced
to permanently abandon even his precious gold-laden carriages to attempt a
pathetic single-rider escape, the King
of Ville was completely boxed in by an iron wall of pursuing cavalry.
Having weakly leaked those frail words to his surroundings, the monarch found
his vessel instantly ringed by dozens of unsheathed, razor-sharp swords thrust
out from the enemy soldiers, and he was violently hauled down from his saddle,
tumbling into the mud.
「 Evaluating your specialized attire
and noble bearing, I perceive you are an individual of monumental standing. However, such is the immutable, unvarnished law of the
battlefield. Forgive the lack of ceremony. Men, bind this man! 」
「 Insolent heretic dogs! You say mere
low-born rabble would put me, a King, in bonds?! Do your rotted minds not
consider that you are losing your manners regarding diplomatic deference?! 」
Hearing the flat command Eroll unleashed, the King
of Ville's face warped into a violent mask of pure, unbridled rage. However, Eroll
simply gave him a freezing, detached glance.
「 The pride…… of an individual who
attempted to flee, is it? Leaving behind your own fighting countrymen across
the active meat-grinder even now? Under regular protocols, capture takes
priority, but if your royal person desires to commit an immediate suicide upon this dirt to preserve the final cinders of your
dignity without suffering bonds, that is a different story. Shall I gladly lend
you my personal dagger for the deed—what say you? 」
「 Wh—Why must a supreme being of my
stature be compelled to commit suicide?! 」
「 Regardless of how much you are the
king of a nation, the weight of your responsibility for marching across our
borders to invade another country and harm many common citizens is monumental.
You will likely be subject to an appropriate, highly public punishment at a
later date, but unseemly, frantic tantrums will on the contrary only
permanently damage whatever microscopic dignity of a monarch your frame still
retains. 」
「 Subject to a punishment, you say?! I am of the absolute Supreme Sovereign status
governing a nation! Do your primitive minds not even know the absolute
courtesy owed to royalty?! 」
「 Deep within the borders of the Demon
Territory Dukedom, there exists a highly specialized enclave where the
First Imperial Prince of the Gryphonia Empire formerly spent an extended,
peaceful time strictly as a captive prisoner. Being treated equally to
him is considered the utmost courteous treatment; surely your intellect can
appreciate the parallel? 」
「 Preposterous! I am actively a
reigning, crowned King right now!
How dare your tongue compare my supreme presence to a mere candidate for an
Imperial throne who does not sit on the throne! 」
『 This
pathetic man is fundamentally incapable of understanding anything……
』
With such thoughts, Erol had no intention of engaging in any
more meaningless and unpleasant questions and answers. Casting a gaze saturated
with unadulterated disgust down at the kneeling king,
he spoke to his subordinates without returning a single word to him.
「 Leave a detachment of 200 riders here. I ask that you escort him while keeping him in bonds, and
safely transport the heavy carriages loaded with the plundered goods. The
remaining 800 shall wheel their mounts this exact split-second and return to
the battlefield to re-align with the busy Lord Darek. 」
Saying so, Eroll mounted his horse without a single backward glance and urged his mount back toward the active battlefield. Without paying any heed to the high-pitched, pathetic
shrieks leaked by the bound man shouting something behind his saddle……
※
Meanwhile, Darek expertly tuned the speed of his pursuit, masterfully guiding the fleeing soldiers
while herding them straight toward the exact coordinates of the enemy's main
northern defensive lines. He purposefully commanded his front ranks to restrain
the precision of their steel, paying extreme caution not to prematurely
annihilate the enemy soldiers and break the momentum of the stampede.
On the other hand, General Golpa stood atop his
fortified ridge, looking at the massive dust clouds and the officers and
soldiers running desperately for their bare lives toward his own camp from
about one kilometer ahead, and let out a long, heavy, bone-weary sigh.
「 Good grief…… Looking at the erratic, uncoordinated movement of the
escape, His Majesty's rearguard unit
has been completely shattered into cinders…… Perhaps I should have brought him
here even by force…… 」
Yet, the moment the thought cleared his brain, the old veteran fully knew with absolute certainty that he was tracing a
completely impossible hypothesis. The rotted pride of the King of Ville
would have never permitted his royal person to occupy a hazardous, absolute
frontline; furthermore, even if by some chance that arrogant king had actually appeared within his location, Golpa himself would likely have been
instantaneously stripped of his supreme command, or at the very least, his
hands would have had various idiotic court restrictions imposed on him. If that
happened, executing a highly synchronized, fluid defensive campaign unified
with the Lute Kingdom Army would become a structural impossibility, and
the First Prince would no longer entrust his back to him either. When
evaluating the absolute totality of the board, parting ways and enforcing a
political rupture with his sovereign master was an essential requirement for Golpa's
true, ultimate objective: "safeguarding the vessels of his common
soldiers, ensuring as many of his countrymen as possible could return alive to
their ancestral homeland."
「 My Lord…… the 500 ballistas
anchoring our southern batteries stand fully prepared for interception
according to the initial strategy.
」
One of the officers came to report with a completely pale
expression, his hands shaking as he had made up his mind. The desperate query
screaming across his eyes was absolute: To flawlessly blunt the enemy's
high-speed pursuit, our batteries will be structurally compelled to unleash a
blind sweeping carpet-fire, effectively vaporizing our own fleeing allies right
along with them.
According to Golpa's plan,
as an initial deployment, 100 ballistae each had
been deployed to anchor the northern, eastern, and western of their encampment,
but the remaining 1,000 units were all
heavily concentrated exclusively on the southern horizon. Yet, within that massive
southern battery, a highly peculiar alignment had been enforced: while exactly
half of the units had their lines of fire directed south, for some reason,
the remaining 500 units had been systematically set up
facing north where their own fleeing infantry were crowded.
「 Hoh…… right. It's a highly precise,
slightly tedious modification, but among the 500 units deployed facing south,
could you urgently change the elevation angle of 400 units to the maximum
elevation settings, and lock their trajectories onto our maximum long-range
parameters? 」
「 B—But my Lord! At absolute maximum
elevation settings…… 」
「 Outside the effective range, the
kinetic penetration of the bolts will degrade, and they shouldn't inflict a
significant amount of casualties. However…… the sheer, terrifying spectacle of a
high-altitude steel rain should serve as an absolute, un-breachable
psychological threat to seal off their rear momentum. Have the frontline long
spear units maintain an unyielding, dense wall in front as planned. Our
sequence of execution shall be:
·
First, conduct a suppressing
long-range counter-salvo at maximum range; the exact fraction of a second after
firing, instantaneously correct the elevation angle back to original coordinates and hurry the loading of the next round.
·
Second, have the charging hostile
cavalry received by the long spear units deployed in front to physically bleed
their speed and buy our loaders the necessary temporal gap.
·
Third, after our fleeing allies
successfully clear the kill-zone to scramble inside our trenches, first respond
with the 100 units pre-set to optimal effective range; the other 400 units
will likely be ready to finalize their reloading calibrations soon after. 」
「 Y—Yes! Implementing it
immediately. 」
While gazing at the frantic back of the messenger, the
sub-officer standing parallel to Golpa's saddle addressed the old veteran. His features were a complex, chaotic mix of minor relief
at Golpa's instructions, and a complicated expression entirely unable to
hide his deep, un-erasable anxiety……
「 My Lord…… evaluating the sheer
density of the chaos, what percentage of our fleeing infantry do you project
will be able to arrive here alive, I wonder? Furthermore…… do you truly
calculate that a long-range bluff of this caliber will force them to pull
back and retreat? 」
「 The probability remains unknown,
but…… it's worth a try. Our
ballistae far surpass the primitive, cheap imitations constructed by
the Gryphonia Empire. Since we have spent consecutive hours doing advance
preparations too, even if the long-range volley lacks the raw kinetic power to
shatter their armor, the unadulterated terror of watching a mountain of steel
descend should be able to instill the fear of numbers. 」
In front of them, on the land the ballistae were targeting,
abatis disguised as anti-cavalry fences were pre-set in several tiers so that
the exact firing range could be known. Therefore, even against approaching
enemy soldiers, they could sweep them after grasping their exact coordinates,
and they could also deal a devastating blow to the pursuing enemy cavalry
without accidentally firing upon their own allies.
「 Then, the 400 units will commence attack judging
the precise split-second they enter our maximum range. Standby orders for the
100 units to hold their attack until
they cross our primary effective range, just as before. 」
At the sub-officer's repetition, Golpa simply offered
a slow, definitive nod.
※
Meanwhile, at that time, Darek was relentlessly
pursuing the soldiers trying to flee into the enemy camp while paying extreme
caution and holding back his attacks. Not only maintaining a fast parallel
pursuit, but because a suspicion was actively grinding through the back of his
mind, he had purposefully permitted his sweeping cavalry formations to fan out across an immense horizontal width, drastically
thinning out the structural density of his lines. And then…… the sky violently
erupted, and hundreds of massive ballista bolts flew from the enemy's fortified
northern ridge toward them, who were conducting an accurate pursuit.
「 Tch! Disperse! Every single cavalry
rider focus exclusively on individual high-speed evasive maneuvers!! 」
Following Darek's booming command, the elite horsemen
strove to evade while instantaneously shattering their compact formations and scattering. Originally, the Royal Knights third legion
was a group of heavily armored cavalry, and perhaps because the massive barrage
flew an unexpected range and unnatural maximum distance of its arc, their raw
penetration power was low; although they didn't suffer major casualties, the
magnificent, synchronized geometry of their charging lines was greatly
disturbed and fractured into chaos.
「 Hmph. It appears an exceptionally
competent, proper commander is steering the defensive lines on
the opponent's side as well. The bastards changed their deployment so they
could re-configure the core of their artillery to attack the southern horizon.
But do they truly calculate that my unit
will…… fall for such a primitive, transparent trick. 」
Spitting that out, Darek let out a savage, unbothered
roar across his saddle, hoisting his massive sword straight toward the sky as a
terrifying, fearless grin appeared on
his features.
「 From here on, we shall transition
seamlessly to our Secondary Protocol! Execute a massive, top-speed lateral
right wheel to completely bypass the enemy's frontal lanes, sweep around their
outer flanks, and link up with Royal
Knights Third Division! We
shall drive our combined brawn straight up their northern lines to compress them! Every cavalry rider—do not dare fall
behind or drop your speed by a single fraction of a second!! 」
With that instruction, Darek himself also led the
9,000 remaining cavalry, turned his horse's head, changed direction, and made
no further reckless, blind charges into a fortified artillery nest. During the
extensive strategic council held inside the main camp the previous day, Darek had vigorously debated this
specific concern with Alexis and Commander Schulz, and the
long-range artillery ambush they had just received operated strictly as one of the pre-calculated baselines
they had fully anticipated. Furthermore, tracing the density of the previous
day's attack, he had already understood that the absolute ceiling of the
ballistae the enemy had deployed was rigidly capped at approximately 1,000 units. Therefore, Darek’s veteran mind instantly
diagnosed the long-range maximum-elevation volley currently being fired as
strictly a deceptive decoy, realizing that if he charged aiming for the gap
during reloading, the remaining hidden ballistae would bare their fangs within
lethal effective range.
Regarding this exact point, there existed a highly complex, subtle divergence regarding the reading and progression of tactics between both General Golpa and Darek; yet across the current threshold, neither classified that discrepancy as a significant issue. As a direct consequence of their competing maneuvers, the structural aspect of the entire northern battlefield had taken a form dynamically shifting according to Golpa's calculations, but Darek himself did not yet know this reality. With the morning sun climbing higher into the sky, the focal point of the fierce battle will permanently shift to the heavily fortified southern quadrant where the two nations' armies laid their camp, as anticipated by both camps, and transition into a brutal, unadulterated all-out war where both sides clash with their full, combined power.
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