Chapter 201

Translator: Willia

The long War of Imperial Succession finally seemed to be drawing to a close. It had simmered for four or five years, only for events to begin moving rapidly once Marie intervened.

In the end, each side had to accept a certain amount of risk if they were to settle the contest.

When Ricardt took the first risk and stepped back a little, the balance that had held until then shifted. Perhaps Ricardt’s very existence had been one of the pillars keeping it in equilibrium.

Now only the Second Prince, the Fifth Prince, and Marie remained at the gambling table, while Ricardt stood behind them and watched.

Each of the three held different cards. Fifth Prince Bellator controlled the imperial capital, Second Prince Rotarius enjoyed considerable support among the nobility, and Marie was popular with the common people.

Perhaps the fundamental reason they saw one another as threats was that each held such different cards.

No one could know what the age desired or whom it would ultimately choose. As ever, history did not concern itself with good and evil. Justice did not triumph; the victor became justice and defined the spirit of the age.

Those who found their own path and walked it could only choose according to their free will. The outcome was God’s alone to decide. Perhaps free will shone brightest precisely because the future was uncertain.

In any case, it was a truly sweltering summer. It might have been better than winter, but summer was still a miserable season for battle. For everyone.

The days felt not merely hot but scorching, while the Master Alliance’s relentless sabotage bit at them like swarms of mosquitoes, leaving the Fifth Prince’s army exhausted before battle even began.

The Fifth Prince’s army had one great weakness: Bellator was truly terrible at warfare. Even worse than the Second Prince.

This arose less from incompetence or poor judgment than from greed. Though he never took part in the fighting himself, he retained personal control of the army, maintaining a thoroughly bizarre command structure. It hardly suited the name Bellator, which meant ‘warrior’.

Bellator did this because he trusted no one and refused to relinquish even the slightest measure of power.

Even so, the force committed to the siege of Stormhertz numbered no fewer than six thousand.

He had ordered every soldier committed, but a bare minimum still had to remain behind to handle supplies and defend the imperial capital, leaving six thousand. It was a number they had managed to muster only by scraping together every last man they could find.

By contrast, only a little over thirty people were defending Stormhertz Castle. Even with all the villagers included, they numbered fewer than a hundred.

By the numbers alone, it was not even a contest. Yet it was somehow evenly balanced, a difficult battle for both sides.

“Three months?”

Count Gustred, the field commander of the Fifth Prince’s army, asked with a frown.

The man he addressed was plainly some sort of craftsman or laborer. He had removed his headgear and now held it against his chest as he bowed.

“That is the shortest estimate I could give, but even procuring the materials will be difficult. The axle is especially important for a catapult, and those are produced only in the Benicio Trading Company’s workshops. To obtain one elsewhere, we would have to cross the sea to the Lunadan region and purchase it from the heathens. I have already sent someone, but there is no telling when he will return.”

The man who looked like a craftsman was, in fact, a specialist in constructing siege weapons. Most siege engines were not hauled over long distances but assembled on site.

But they could not simply be knocked together whenever someone wanted one.

“Messenger, this battle cannot be sustained for three months. I asked you to make that clear to the prince. Was the message not delivered?”

Gustred looked away from the engineer and addressed the man who kept wiping sweat from his face with his hand in the heat.

“No, sir. I most certainly delivered it.”

“Then why......”

The siege engineer had been sent by Fifth Prince Bellator. Gustred had been ordered to employ the man, construct siege weapons, and bring down Stormhertz Castle.

But that did not fit the situation on the ground. Merely sustaining six thousand men consumed an enormous amount of money and food. With that many troops, they should be putting their numbers to use. What did they need siege weapons for?

Count Gustred stood silent for a moment, seemingly at a loss for words. In any age and any organization, those caught in the middle always suffered most.

“What should we do, Count? If the fighting drags on without any real engagement, discipline among the soldiers will deteriorate. At the same time, our supply routes are under constant threat, so everyone is anxious. Honoring the prince’s wishes is all well and good, but I believe the time has come for you to make a decision.”

That was the problem. The orders from above were frustrating enough, yet those below him kept pressing him to do this or that. And since they were fellow nobles, he could not simply browbeat them into silence.

Even so, Gustred answered with reasonable calm.

“......Let us at least formulate a plan. Building siege engines will not necessarily bring down the castle. We will undermine the ground morning and evening, while sending a battering ram against the gate. Divide the men into five units and rotate them. That should at least keep the enemy from resting properly.”

It seemed Bellator had not chosen just anyone as his field commander. The plan was nothing remarkable, but it made the best possible use of their numerical advantage.

Gustred immediately reorganized his forces. A study of the terrain showed that most of it was too rocky, but there was exactly one place where the ground could be undermined.

He sent in troops with picks and shovels, and they set about digging away the hill itself. It looked less like a battle than a construction site.

He then selected men of exceptional courage and sent them charging toward the gate with a battering ram. In truth, the ram was merely a log sharpened at one end, carried forward by several men and driven into the gate.

Supporting troops flanked them, using shields to block stones and arrows, though Marie’s defenders possessed only two crossbows to begin with.

Even so, from the perspective of the men below, the chance that an arrow might strike them was burden enough.

Stormhertz was an old and relatively small castle. Its gate was therefore neither particularly thick nor sturdy, and if they could only break through it, the battle might end sooner than expected.

Gustred and the other commanders watched the battering-ram unit climb the hill with mingled tension and anticipation. The defenders threw stones and loosed arrows from atop the palisade, but the siege troops pressed doggedly onward.

By the time they neared the gate, however, the path had narrowed so much that the men beside them could no longer provide support. Even so, those carrying the ram charged with a mighty roar.

“Waaaaaaaah!”

“Fuuuuuuuck!”

At that moment, the ground suddenly collapsed, sending the men carrying the ram tumbling wildly down the hill.

The men who had carried shields alongside them during the climb could only watch from behind in stunned despair. Gustred was no different.

“Of course. Fuck.”

The sweltering summer heat left sweat streaming down him even when he stood still. After watching the siege troops’ assault come to nothing as they tumbled down the hill, Gustred gave his next order.

“Lay down planks and make a path. Then send in the battering ram again.”

Siege warfare was never truly a contest of swords and spears. It was a struggle to make a path and force a breach by any means possible. Once a breach was made, those inside generally surrendered, so unless a massacre followed, there was rarely much need to use swords or spears.

And so the struggle between those trying to break through and those trying to hold them back unfolded. At the gate, the attackers reinforced the collapsed ground while the defenders harried them with arrows and stones. On the hillside, men carved away at the slope day and night as though engaged in some vast construction project.

After about five days, the ground before the gate had been made firm enough for people to cross. The planks laid over it were crooked, but sturdy.

They sent the battering ram forward again, only for the gate to fly open and a mounted knight to emerge with a lance. What the fuck?

It was Abelich, helmeted and fully armored. With fearless courage, he charged the siege troops climbing the hill. Startled, they flung aside the log and scattered in every direction. He did not even have anyone to collide with.

Abelich rode all the way down the hill, then rampaged among the nearby enemy soldiers, riding them down and stabbing them at will. The soldiers had not expected a knight to emerge from the castle and fled, abandoning their various siege tools.

After scattering the enemy, Abelich rode back up the hill. As he returned to the castle, he destroyed the path that had been built over the collapsed ground.

Gustred watched without alarm, as though he had anticipated this much, and issued another order.

“Deploy archers on both sides first. If he comes out again, turn him into a hedgehog. Then rebuild the path. Whoever holds out wins! Do not lose heart!”

He was right. Reality, however, did not unfold as neatly as his words.

The Master Alliance’s sabotage in the rear intensified, like water slowly growing hotter, until its members began launching nighttime raids.

The supply units arrived at increasingly irregular intervals, and at times all their goods were plundered, preventing food from reaching the army on schedule.

Each time, Gustred repeated the same words to encourage his soldiers.

“Hold out! If we endure, we win!”

The soldiers felt that something was not right about this, but for the time being, they believed him. In truth, what tormented them most was neither Marie’s defenders nor the mosquito-like Master Alliance. It was the heat. Lately, even the nights were too hot for them to sleep properly.

Worse, the gambesons commonly worn by soldiers were padded with cotton or wool, making the mere act of wearing one in midsummer tantamount to torture.

Sweat poured from them like rain, and their gambesons grew ever damper and heavier as they soaked it up.

Still, they stubbornly hauled stones and earth, trying to build a path to the gate. It was not easy, but they somehow kept laboring onward like ants.

After roughly two weeks, welcome news came from the unit excavating the hillside beside the castle.

They had carved away the entire slope to make a path and had nearly reached the castle palisade. The defenders had too few people to interfere with every effort.

When Gustred inspected the site himself, his face brightened at the thought that the battle might be decided here. If they brought down the palisade and sent troops through the gap, how could the castle possibly be defended?

Both sides knew what would happen. Before long, the palisade would tilt at its base and topple. The Fifth Prince’s soldiers had even removed their armor and bared their upper bodies as though daring the defenders to kill them, digging furiously with picks and shovels.

It was around midmorning. The defenders offered what resistance they could from atop the palisade, but when its collapse seemed imminent, they climbed down.

At last, the palisade gave a great crack and came crashing down. But it fell on the Fifth Prince’s soldiers. The men beneath it were crushed en masse, but accidents happened on any construction site, did they not?

“Pull all the workers back! Send in the reserves now! Now!”

At Gustred’s command, mounted soldiers raced back and forth, relaying his orders.

The men climbing the hill scattered in disorder, while the actual combat troops waiting below charged up the slope with swords and spears, heading for the place where the palisade had fallen.

But when they had nearly reached the castle, one man was waiting for them. Not several men, just one, holding only a single sword.

Ice’s silver hair looked almost white beneath the sunlight. Wearing lighter armor than usual, he slowly drew his sword and swung it at the approaching enemy.

The sunlight reflected from the blade mingled with the distinctive radiance of a Sword Master, making it look as though he held light itself in his hand and swung it.

The soldiers tried to push forward behind their shields and spears, but every stroke of his sword sent one or sometimes two men crumpling helplessly to the ground.

There was no special technique to it. He merely raised the sword above his head and brought it down. Light flashed again and again. Each time, soldiers sprayed blood and died, and bodies piled up in moments. Those approaching from behind could advance no farther because the corpses blocked their path.

Moreover, whenever a man at the front decided this was a bad idea and stepped backward, the troops shoved against one another until the whole mass was forced down the slope.

“What is happening......”

Watching from afar, Gustred was dumbfounded. They had brought down the palisade, only to find even greater despair waiting behind it.

Until then, the prevailing wisdom had been that Sword Masters were of little use on the battlefield. They were not immortal, and experience had shown that even they were vulnerable to stray blades, spears, and arrows amid the chaos of battle.

But in a defensive siege, particularly at a narrow approach, they were impossible to overcome.

“Count......”

When Count Gustred fell silent for the first time, despair seemed to spread even to those around him.

If they had come this far and still could not succeed, perhaps it simply could not be done. Should they withdraw their forces even now? Once they passed a certain point, their losses might mount.

Such thoughts flashed through Count Gustred’s mind. They also meant that, in this struggle of will against will, his own resolve was gradually breaking.

“If we return now, the prince will not let us off......”

One of his close retainers spoke. He had not read the count’s thoughts, but he felt much the same.

“......Yes. There is no other choice. We keep going until it works.”

Gustred spoke as though abandoning himself to despair. Yet this was not surrender in the true sense. If anything, it was closer to setting his resolve ablaze.

From that point onward, he stripped off his own shirt and took up a shovel. Determined to carve away the entire hill, he tried to open paths elsewhere as well. Those areas were rocky, making the work especially difficult and dangerous.

When the commander himself joined the work, the soldiers found their strength once more.

In truth, the defenders were suffering just as badly. The heat showed no favoritism. By now they wished the enemy would retreat, but Count Gustred was not so weak-willed a man.

They had brought plenty of food in advance and were not starving, but drinking water was becoming a problem. With so many people consuming it in the summer heat, the well was already running dry.

There were truly no special tactics left. It was simply a contest to see which side would give up first.

Another two weeks passed before a different section of the castle’s defenses was breached. When troops poured through, Bori stepped forward and began swinging his sword wildly.

“There are two Sword Masters!? There cannot be three! We keep going until it works!”

Gustred began carving away yet another section of the hill. By then their supply route had been cut off entirely, and hunger and sleeplessness had left them barely human.

Six weeks after the siege began, Gustred opened a new path with the determination to finish it once and for all, then personally led the charge. By then, he had lost a great deal of his capacity for rational judgment.

“If we do not finish this today, we all fucking die! Even if I fall, charge to the very end! I do not seek to live! I seek only victory! Follow meeeeeee!”

“Waaaaaaaaah!”

Gustred truly wore no armor and carried a pick in one hand as he raced wildly toward the castle. Six thousand troops attacked simultaneously at the gate and along the three approaches carved through the hillside.

But this time, a third Sword Master was waiting. Martellia von Nibelinger. Like Gustred, she too had half lost her reason.

The methods of controlling mana had yet to be properly systematized, so each person manifested it differently. When Marie roused her mana, her hair flew wildly as though caught in the wind.

The instant Gustred saw her, he thought, She was not a pregnant woman at all. She was a witch. It was the last conscious thought of his life.

Waiting above, Marie glared with wide eyes and clenched teeth as she brought down her sword. A violet flash erupted, and Gustred’s upper body was cleanly severed on a diagonal with almost unbelievable ease.

She then swung her sword at the enemies charging fiercely behind him, looking almost like a butcher performing the same repetitive task.

Again and again, she merely raised her sword and brought it down. On either side, Roy and Beka risked their lives to support her.

Bodies piled up in moments. The enemy tripped over the corpses of their comrades, shoved them aside and climbed again, then slipped in the blood. It was a desperate battle in every sense.

It was neither the terrifying Fifth Prince nor Gustred, who had died so valiantly, that had driven them this far. It was the suffocating heat.

The places held by Ice and Bori were little different. With support on either side, they simply swung their swords as though slicing the enemy into strips.

In the midst of it all, Marie’s water suddenly broke. Fluid poured between her legs and mingled with the enemy’s blood. One heralded birth, the other death.

Marie staggered and seized Beka’s shoulder, gripping it tightly.

“Y-Your Majesty!”

“I’ll take over!”

Roy realized what was happening and took Marie’s place. Since Marie had already cut down so many, holding the position was not especially difficult.

He swung his axe and threw his body into the enemy, holding back those who had nearly lost their reason and kept charging as they shoved corpses aside or clambered over them.

Meanwhile, Beka could not even take Marie far. She laid her down nearby and began delivering the baby, shouting loudly,

“Water! Bring water! His Majesty the Emperor is coming!”

Why she had said that just then was unclear, but it was true that the child, once born, would be the next king of Adeloron and the crown prince of the Empire. Never before had there been a bloodline so exalted.

The villagers inside the castle were suffering just as badly from repairing the defenses and supporting the battle. Yet when the baby chose this moment to come, they all rushed over and surrounded Marie, as though determined to protect the child no matter what happened, even if the castle fell.

Abelich was already mounted, prepared to launch a death-defying charge if any position was breached. But when his daughter-in-law went into labor, his eyes filled with turmoil.

Anxiety and anticipation mingled like light and shadow. Then, just as the battle reached its fiercest point, on the hottest day of the year, a new life announced its birth.

“Waaaaaaaah!”

It was a profoundly incongruous, alien sound. In a battle.

The baby’s cry seemed to proclaim that he was alive, that life existed here.

As the cry rang across the battlefield, the enemy abruptly came to their senses. Their morale broke, and as one soldier after another fled, the entire offensive began to collapse.

“The crown prince. Our little lord.”

Beka spoke to Marie as she cradled the blood-slick infant carefully in her hands. At the end of such extreme pain and strain, Marie suddenly felt all the world fall away as supreme joy burst into bloom and filled her mind, soul, and body.

Marie whispered with the smile of one who had attained enlightenment. Her voice was quiet, but everyone nearby heard her.

“Billy, my Billy......”

She and Ricardt had promised to name a son Vilter and a daughter Hildis.

And so, as they had promised each other, they named him Vilter, and people called him the child born on the hottest day.

His family name was Ricarn. Vilter von Ricarn. From the moment of his birth, he was the next king of Adeloron and, should his mother become emperor, the confirmed crown prince as well.

And so Vilter was born carrying fire within him, in the very heart of a battlefield. Just as Ricardt’s older brother had been the fiercest flame as commander of the Order of the Flame Knights.

Thus the battle on that especially unbearable summer day ended with the birth of new life.

When the news reached Ricardt, though he was far away, he whispered very softly and carefully, yet distinctly, so that only his son might hear. Please, grow as bright as a star......

Now it was Ricardt’s turn to step forward. The loser at the gambling table had to be made to forfeit the stakes.

The stake was nothing other than justification to stain one’s hands with the blood of the imperial family.

Chapter 40 – A New Beginning at the End of Conflict. End.

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