Chapter 125

The Second Winter Once the Yamato dominion government was toppled, the Resistance founded a new, legitimate administration. However, the Freyjagard Empire wasn’t about to sit back and let that slide. Grandmaster Neuro ul Levias held the reins of power while Emperor Lindworm was off on his campaign. After stamping out the empire’s internal dissidents, the first thing Neuro did was mobilize every military asset he could into a subjugating army roughly 150,000 strong to storm the land the Yamato government had taken from them. Yamato’s standing forces totaled less than five thousand, and even with temporary enlistment, the number didn’t reach twenty thousand. The numbers disadvantage was staggering. Yamato had managed to successfully rout an enemy force in the first battle, the night raid by the border. However, that victory was owed to a combination of two factors: the Yamato people’s incredible physical abilities as descendants of the evil dragon’s test subjects and the tactic the High School Prodigies employed. That was to be the last of Yamato’s victories. Prodigy politician Tsukasa Mikogami had described that battle as the only time they’d get to go on the offensive. Sure enough, once the subjugating army’s main force arrived, the imperials’ numbers advantage grew more pronounced still, forcing the Yamato army to retreat again and again. Thanks to the tactical edge that fighting defensive battles while retreating offered the Yamato army, it managed to keep casualties to under a tenth of the imperial army’s. Unfortunately, Freyjagard had soldiers to spare. What mattered far more was the number of garrisons Yamato had to abandon and how far Freyjagard pushed it into its own territory. Yamato was by no means a large country, and there was only so far the army could flee. Now, after having retreated deep into its borders, the Yamato army was forming up at the Byakkokan Checkpoint—the stronghold blocking the highway that led from the west straight into the heart of Yamato. Fort Steadfast was the only remaining bastion of note between it and Yamato’s capital, Azuchi. For Yamato and the High School Prodigies, this was do-or-die. The Byakkokan Checkpoint was a key strategic position on the west side of Yamato. It sealed the nation’s western plains off from the mountain road leading to its center. After getting driven back from the border, that was where the Yamato army, Tsukasa, and the other Prodigies found themselves holed up. They stationed rows of archers atop the ramparts as well as the towering, craggy mountains that surrounded and overlooked it. They deployed gunners all around the stronghold as well. Together, they all stared down the imperial army as its advance across the distant plains before them caused the very ground to rumble. Meanwhile, the subjugating army’s remaining soldiers marched in a formation three times as wide as the mountain road the Byakkokan Checkpoint defended, approaching the Yamato forces like it was spreading its arms out wide to grab the smaller force. The subjugating army was made up of 130,000 soldiers, and the force defending the checkpoint was barely fifteen thousand. From the Yamato side’s perspective, watching the imperial army’s approach was as jaw-dropping as a tsunami. However, not a single one of them cowered in fear, even though the bulk of their army was made up of conscripted amateurs. That was because their supreme commander, Tsukasa Mikogami, had drilled them as he deployed their strategy of slowly whittling the enemy forces down. As a matter of fact, that strategy afforded them a golden opportunity. If you stuck a bunch of fresh new recruits into a fortress, they would be completely useless. There was a principle that was true across war, politics, and finance: The only way to avoid freezing during crucial moments was through experience. Fortunately, the Yamato people had taken to Tsukasa’s drills better than he hoped. Their seething hatred for the empire helped bolster their courage, and by the time the Yamato army got to its critical battle at the Byakkokan Checkpoint with Azuchi at their back, it had improved by leaps and bounds and was ready to face off against its hated foe. The empire advanced, and Yamato waited, ready. As the distance between the two armies shrank, the Freyjagard vanguard arrived at the wide, shallow river that separated the plains from the mountainous region where the Byakkokan Checkpoint stood. And as it did…the gunners stationed atop the Byakkokan Checkpoint’s ramparts and in its gunports made their move and opened fire. Round shot made from carved stone burst from every opening in the checkpoint, lanced across the river, and rained down upon the imperials. The Byakkokan Checkpoint’s cannons weren’t designed to be transported, so they’d been built large and long, and while the river’s opposite bank was over 6,500 feet away, it lay well within the cannons’ range. Human beings were powerless against the terrifying kinetic energy those masses of stone carried. Imperial soldiers and cavalry alike exploded into fleshy chunks without the chance to scream. However, the empire’s soldiers were battle-hardened regulars. Even when a neighboring platoon exploded, they kept formation. Round shot was designed to destroy objects with its sheer mass. While that made it extremely effective against ships and fortresses, it was little more than harassment against troops. Uncowed by the bombardment from the Byakkokan Checkpoint, the imperial soldiers pushed ahead and arrived at the riverbank. The bald giant riding one of Freyjagard’s prized monoceros magical warhorses at the forefront of the army swept his gaze across the garrison sitting upon the opposite shore. Then squinted at it contentedly and stroked his braided beard. “That fortress is huge, and looking at it up close, it’s damn fine, too. Not even we have anything so impressive, do we, Erik?” The middle-aged Gold Knight sitting atop the monoceros beside the giant’s nodded… “Because nobody would dare try to invade the Freyjagard Empire.” …then after giving his reply, laid out the battlefield data he’d looked up ahead of time. “They’ve long since destroyed the bridge, so it won’t do us any good, but we measured the river back when this place was a self-governing dominion. Even at its deepest, it’ll only come up to our waists. We shouldn’t have any problems crossing on foot.” Even with the facts efficiently laid out like that, the bald giant hesitated. The river depth had already been clear from examining the remains of the bridge and the color of the water. He turned his attention away from the adjutant and took another look at the stronghold. This time, he opened his eyes wide and etched it into his gaze, like he was trying to comprehend the fortress in its entirety. “It appears to be about sixty feet tall, and at some two hundred and thirty feet wide, it’s as broad as the mountain path. “Each of its sides is flanked by a mountain as tall as the fortress itself, and both mountains protrude out concavely in front of it. “If we try to charge the checkpoint head-on like simpletons, they’ll rain volleys on us from the mountains on both sides. They’re so bloodthirsty, it’s giving me chills.” “But the mountain slopes should be scalable if we put our minds to it. Couldn’t we just use them to circle behind the fort?” Erik asked. “We most certainly could not. I swear, you’re as stupid as you are ugly.” “B-but why not?” “Have you forgotten what happened to our advance troops on the first day of the war? These bastards are masters when it comes to individual combat. You think we’re really going to accomplish anything by sending our soldiers up a mountain where the Yamatoans have already dug in and secured a positional advantage?” “Ah…” When that was pointed out to him, the middle-aged Gold Knight adjutant cast his gaze down in embarrassment. The giant was absolutely right. There was a limit to how many people they could send up the mountains in one go, and that meant they would be forced into a much smaller-scale battle. And what would happen if they attempted that against an army that had demolished the empire’s thirty-thousand-strong advance guard with just a thousand troops? The answer was obvious. In the time it took a single imperial soldier to climb one of those mountains, a Yamato soldier could cut down five of their comrades without breaking a sweat. “The only way we’re taking down that fortress is by creating a situation where we can storm it with a single overwhelming wave of soldiers. As the people standing straight across from our objective, we have the most critical job. While our troops on both flanks are distracting their forces on the mountains and giving them more targets than they can handle, we need to punch a hole right through the middle of that checkpoint. That’s what it’s going to take to win this battle.” Their enemies had set up a U-shaped formation, and their kill zone was directly in front of the checkpoint. Charging it would mean taking some heavy concentrated fire, but at least the imperials could deploy huge numbers all at once, unlike with the mountain flanks. The imperial forces were individually weaker than their foes, and their numbers advantage was the sole weapon in their arsenal. If they didn’t utilize it, they were doomed. The giant had accurately identified the one route to victory. “Ah, how I want to see him. My dear angel Tsukasa, my silver-haired princeling. Ever since I caught that first glimpse of you as you retreated, I’ve wanted to fill up that pretty little mouth of yours so bad I’ve been trembling!” The young man leading the enemy’s attrition efforts was so beautiful he could have easily been mistaken for a girl. Thinking about his heterochromatic eyes made the bald giant’s nostrils flare with excitement, and his member was so visibly erect it was lifting his heavy chain waist apron. Erik, who rode next to him, grimaced. He might not have been as pedigreed as the Bluebloods, but he was still a perfectly legitimate noble, and the sheer crassness of the man beside him was hard to stomach. His accent, countenance, and sexual hunger were all vulgar. Despite that, the man held the highest martial rank the empire conferred: the title of Platinum Knight. The lofty title was impossible to attain without possessing overwhelming combat prowess, a keen mind for war, and meaningful accomplishments to boot. Now that Gustav was out of the picture, this man—Platinum Knight Walter du Gascorge—was the sole person in charge of commanding the empire’s armed forces. Erik found a lot about him difficult to comprehend, but he knew his word was law to the army. “So how do you intend on punching a hole through that mighty checkpoint, General Gascorge?” When Erik asked for instructions, Gascorge the giant urged his steed onward as he replied. “The first thing we need to do is close the distance. “We’ll wait for our troops to charge the mountains on the sides, then send in our infantry when they do. “Then we’ll use our siege cannons along the riverside and bombing runs from our Dragon Knights to cover us as we ford the river. “Once we cross, our gunners and field guns will be able to get in range of the checkpoint. “And once we make it that far—I’ll show you a sight you won’t soon forget.” With that, the two armies began the conflict in earnest. The imperial infantry began forcing its way across the river. The river was a hair under five thousand feet wide, and the soldiers made good time across its first half. The river’s width gave it a gentle flow, and even at its deepest, it never made it above the waist. For trained imperial regular soldiers, such conditions were a walk in the park. Once they made it halfway across, though, the onslaught from the Byakkokan Checkpoint intensified. Now that the gap between the two sides had shrunk, the Yamato gunners were able to switch out their ammo. Instead of filling their many cannons with processed stone round shot, they were able to use buckshot made up of countless stones wrapped in sailcloth. Buckshot lacked the range and raw destructive power of round shot, but what it did have was coverage, and against the spread-out ranks of imperial soldiers, its effectiveness was unparalleled. A deluge of tiny stones rained down, blowing the faces and legs off of anyone unfortunate enough to catch a hit. The soldiers hurriedly readied their wooden shields, but it was to no avail. The stones may only have been as large as a person’s fist, but they’d been shot from cannons. They tore through the shields’ dry wood like it was paper and shattered the bones beneath. Once the oppressive buckshot bombardment commenced, the imperials’ advance slowed. As the river turned red with blood, the soldiers’ valiant war cries gave way to screams of terror and agony. Yet even so… …the imperials never stopped advancing. They trampled over the bodies of their fallen comrades, and wherever the piles of corpses were tall enough, they used them as cover to continue the charge through the buckshot storm. They never stood still, not once. Not even for a moment. No matter how many stones you threw at a tsunami, it would swallow them with its sheer mass. A mere hundred or so gunports had no hope of pushing back the tens of thousands of imperial foot soldiers. To make matters worse, the imperials began firing back at the Byakkokan Checkpoint from the distant shore, and their Dragon Knights began braving the Yamatoans’ arrows to bomb the checkpoint from above to provide further support for the infantry in the river. Thanks to all that backup, the imperial procession succeeded in making it to the other riverbank. It was a disastrous turn of events for the Yamato side. Now that the imperials had made it to the shore, they were only some 1,600 feet away. That was beyond the optimal range of guns and bows, but it was still within effective distance. And if shots could reach their targets, there was no reason not to fire. In light of that fact, the Yamato forces began desperately shooting the invaders. Now that they could couple their buckshot barrages with volleys of bullets and arrows, the imperial army casualties grew exponentially. Despite having just crossed a river, the imperials showed no indication of fatigue. If anything, their morale had risen. But that was to be expected. Their guns and bows were in range now, too. After all that time they’d spent getting pummeled with no recourse, they were finally able to fight back. Thus began the counterattack. Once the river was behind the imperials, their gunners moved into position. While the rest of the infantry defended them, they reassembled field guns out of the platforms, wheels, and barrels they’d lugged across the river, then began firing in unison. The weapons were small, but the sound of over five hundred of them all spitting out rounds at once was awe-inspiring. The cannons were aimed almost straight up, and their cannonballs soared over the heads of the Yamato soldiers stationed atop the Byakkokan Checkpoint’s ramparts… …and exploded in midair. The imperials weren’t using ordinary round shot or buckshot made of small stones wrapped in fabric. It was a new weapon the imperial workshops had devised called high-explosive shells that ruptured over the enemy’s head and used the force of that explosion to scatter metal shrapnel. High-explosive shells weren’t designed around kinetic energy–based destruction, so they posed little threat to the Byakkokan Checkpoint itself. For the Yamato soldiers, however, it was terrifying. There was nothing they could use for cover atop the ramparts. Metal shrapnel lanced from the blast zone and tore into the Yamato soldiers, whose screams echoed into the uncaring blue sky. The Yamato forces on the mountains tried to help, but the empire wasn’t about to let that happen. The Dragon Knights began bombing even harder than before to keep them pinned down, and the mages riding behind the Dragon Knights struck with magic, as well. Fire, lightning, ice, and steel all poured down from overhead. In the blink of an eye, the battlefield around the Byakkokan Checkpoint was a cacophony akin to a thousand peals of thunder. When faced with the intensity of the empire’s onslaught, the Yamato army’s counterattacks weakened, and the empire used that opening to send another wave of troops across the river. This time, some of them were armed with massive siege cannons pulled along by horses. That was the imperial siege corps. When the corps got to the checkpoint-side shore, it dived behind the fortifications the previous wave of soldiers had set up and began assembling cannons from disparate parts. Its members drove stakes deep into the ground to set up platforms to support their cannons, then mounted the barrels atop them. These were the empire’s cutting-edge siege cannons, and their barrels had been polished to a sheen. They weren’t as long as the siege cannons the empire used to provide covering fire from the far shore, but they were of a much higher caliber, and the siege corps loaded the massive weapons with round shot perfectly designed for raw destruction. The ammunition was made of metal instead of stone. Then the firing began. A deafening roar split the air as the kinetic energy from the explosions drove the outrageously heavy 110-pound metal spheres directly into the Byakkokan Checkpoint. Each and every one of them had enough force to smash a stone fortress wall to smithereens. However… …things didn’t pan out quite as the imperials planned. The five new siege cannons’ mighty attacks barely put a dent in the Byakkokan Checkpoint’s walls. One of the shots went high, caving in a gunport near the ramparts and crushing part of the wall’s exterior, but the damage didn’t spread. Meanwhile, the rest of the shots smashed into the edifice proper, but all they did was sink into it rather than break through. Gascorge looked quizzically upon what had just happened from his central command post. “Oh my. It’s so much tougher than I expected.” “The Byakkokan Checkpoint isn’t just tall, it’s also over sixty feet deep at its longest point. It’s open in the center, of course, but the walls are extremely thick.” Gascorge squinted doubtfully. “Is that all there is to it, though?” All of a sudden, a teasing voice came from behind his back. “Looks like you’re in a bit of a bind. Yup.” When Gascorge and Erik turned around, they saw a little man looking up them. The newcomer’s face was so covered in bandages that only his eyes were visible, and he was wearing a turban adorned with peacock feathers. The two knights recognized the figure, and once Gascorge realized who it was, he leaped off his monoceros and cried out with delight. “Dear me, if it isn’t my adorable little Sai!” “Don’t get near me with that creepy look on your face. Yup.” “It’s not your moment to shine yet, you know. Shouldn’t you be asleep?” “You really think you have time to worry over others right now? Your prized siege cannons are in a bad way. Yup.” Over where the short new arrival pointed, the state-of-the-art siege encampment was taking heavy fire. The fortification its military engineers erected had held out as long as it could, but it ultimately crumbled. The five cannons were worthless now. “If you haven’t blasted even tiny holes in that thing by the time I wake, I’m going to strap bombs to your entire army and have it charge the fortress. It’s a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. Yup,” the pipsqueak said, undaunted by the height gap between himself and the knights. If anything, the way he spoke made it feel like he was the one looking down on Gascorge. Gascorge replied with a throaty chuckle. “Impatient as ever, I see. I assure you that won’t be necessary. After all, I’m about to give us the opening we need. It’s time for the wheel bomb squad to work its magic.” He gave the order, and in response, the team he’d referred to as the wheel bomb squad, who’d been setting up while the enemy was distracted by the siege cannons, got into position. Platinum Knight Gascorge’s tactics revolved around tempo. Every action inspired an enemy reaction, so he made sure to spend that time getting his next attack prepped so he could keep up the pressure without giving his foes a chance to breathe. Doing so allowed him to constantly maintain the initiative, forcing the battle to adapt to his pace and leading things toward his desired conclusion. And the team he’d chosen for his big finale was the wheel bomb squad. When Sai saw the bizarre objects the squad had, his eyes went wide. “Gas… What even are those wheel monster things?” “I’m told they’re a new weapon developed by one of the Elm exchange students. The wheel is an unpiloted explosive propelled by a series of rockets fixed to its frame. I believe they’re called panjandrums.” “That all sounds like a bad joke. Do they really work?” The harsh appraisal earned another burst of laughter from Gascorge. “Not in the slightest. They’re heaps of junk. Why, we don’t even know what direction they’re going to roll.” “Excuse me?” “But you see, even junk has its uses. For example, situations where no matter where they roll, they’re guaranteed to strike a desired target.” “You’re saying that you brought those things over from the empire because you anticipated they would hole up there all along, Sir Gascorge…?” “Wasn’t it obvious? This is their key western stronghold.” Gascorge had known since the onset, based on the route his foes were taking, that the Byakkokan Checkpoint was where they would make their stand. He’d also known it was incredibly large, well fortified, and geographically advantaged. Punching through a stronghold like that required firepower, massive firepower the likes of which could wipe it off the map in a single blow. The problem was that dragons couldn’t carry something like that. Even ground soldiers would be hard-pressed to transport it. It would simply be too heavy. Thus, Gascorge had zeroed in on a nonsensical invention the imperial workshop engineers had built based on a report from an exchange student, one that could carry huge amounts of explosives at high speeds unpiloted. “The panjandrum may be junk, but stone fortresses that are good for nothing but their size and bulk are even more useless still. In this era where siege weaponry and gunpowder technology advance by the day, fortresses need to be more than that.” As progress marched on, traditional fortresses were fast becoming nothing more than sitting ducks. The first person to realize that fact was an imperial noble named Oban, who began developing bastion-style fortresses with ramparts made of earthen walls rather than stone to better resist cannon fire. He arranged the structures in the shapes of stars to blunt the enemy’s attacks while allowing for crossfire from the protruding edges. That was something Gascorge knew as well, and from his perspective, their enemies were utter dunces for choosing to hole themselves up in an outdated fortress with no merits save its size. It was his job to show them just how foolish they were. The toll of making an error like that against a general such as him would be steep. “Now go blast the past into rubble and end this!” The bomb wheel squad had finished crossing the river while the siege cannons were being used as bait, and when Gascorge gave the order, they ignited their panjandrums. Once they had double-checked to make sure all their fire rockets were lit, they gave the main wheels a firm kick to get them on their way. The 120 panjandrums began rolling. Several of them toppled over from the uneven ground or crashed into the mountains on the side when some fire rockets fell off one side of their wheels, but over 70 percent reached their target… …and caused a boom and a shock wave so mighty it was akin to a star falling from the sky. “Ah-ha-ha-ha! Ohhhhh, what a lovely sound! I felt that deep in my heart!” “You settled it in one fell swoop,” Erik remarked. “There isn’t a fortress in the world that could survive an explosion of that size.” The blast had truly been gigantic, and it kicked up a dust storm around the Byakkokan Checkpoint so large that it was impossible for them to confirm the scope of the damage. Even so, neither Gascorge nor Sai had any reason to doubt Erik’s assessment. There was no way a stone fortress so old-fashioned could withstand such an assault. That much was apparent, which was precisely why Gascorge froze when the dust settled. “What in the…?” The Byakkokan Checkpoint hadn’t emerged unscathed, but it hadn’t collapsed, either. It stood tall, still blocking the mountain path. “What’s going on?” Gascorge wondered. “Surely its sturdiness must have its limits.” “…Ah, clever. I guess our foes aren’t total fools after all. Yup,” Sai muttered as he surveyed the scene through an imperial workshop-made telescope. “Sai?” “They used sandbags.” “!” Gascorge gave the Byakkokan Checkpoint another good, hard look, and when he did, he finally spotted the massive amounts of sand that had come pouring out to plug the holes left by the panjandrums. “From the outset, they’d given up on using the Byakkokan Checkpoint as a fortress. Yup. Instead, they filled it with sandbags. The checkpoint is nothing more than a facade. That’s no garrison anymore; it’s a massive wall of dirt. Any minor holes we punch in it will just repair themselves. Trying to blast it away with cannons and bombs will be an uphill battle. Yup.” “…Tch.” Gascorge’s previous nonchalant confidence was gone. The panjandrums were his finisher, the tool he’d brought to end the battle with. His whole plan had centered on using them to deal crippling damage to the Byakkokan Checkpoint so his soldiers could surge in through the openings. Now that strategy was in ruins. It had been foiled by an enemy who’d believed that Gascorge would go after the checkpoint itself and not the mountains on its flanks. They’d known he was coming, and they’d stopped him handily. Surely that meant a counterattack was imminent. As though to confirm Gascorge’s theory, it began. A barrage of arrows came pouring from the Byakkokan Checkpoint and the surrounding mountains at the soldiers who’d crossed the river—too many to possibly count. “Shit! Arrows, incoming! Get those shields up!” The imperial soldiers hurriedly raised their wooden shields overhead to protect themselves. Arrows were far lighter than buckshot, so the imperials were certain that the projectiles would do little to slow them down. They quickly came to understand that was an incorrect assumption. “ARRRRRGH!!!!” “E-eeeeeek?!” Those were no normal arrowheads. A porcelain siphon was attached to the end of each shaft, and fire came gushing out when they shattered from the force of the impact. Anyone who blocked the arrows with a shield immediately found themselves alight. On seeing that, the Gold Knight in charge of commanding the forces on the front lines clicked his tongue… “Fire arrows, huh? Clever bastards! Get back in the river!” …and gave the order to extinguish the fire. That was when the tragedy truly began. “““AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!””” When the flame-enveloped soldiers rushed into the river, it didn’t quench fire. On the contrary, the burning intensified, swallowing the afflicted troops whole. In the blink of an eye, the river became a sea of flames. “I’ve heard of this stuff. They say the New World has a kind of gunpowder that burns with a fire that grows stronger when soaked with water. Not even the empire’s figured out how to produce it, but I guess these guys have…” Sai trembled as he gazed upon the nightmarish inferno and the charred, writhing corpses. However, the reality was even worse than he imagined. What the Yamato soldiers were using wasn’t a New World concoction but a distant descendant of that compound based on hundreds of years of improvement on a planet called Earth. Each of those arrows was a perfected combustion tool that used naphtha as its main fuel source—a napalm bomb. Extinguishing that fire was impossible for this world’s technology. The battle line the imperials had built by forcing their way across the river collapsed. And to make matters worse… “Messenger, coming through! General Balentien’s vanguard forces attacking the left mountain have been wiped out! Gold Knight Parth has perished!” …their soldiers on the left mountain, who were supposed to support their attack on the center, also got pushed back. “Goodness, what a shame to lose a swordfighter as handsome and talented as Parthy-poo.” Gascorge looked up and saw an angel standing atop the blood-drenched mountain on the left. Her long hair fluttered, and she carried a lapis lazuli blade in hand. “Heh. I see they don’t call them angels for nothing. Oh, this is good stuff. It’s making me hard.” “Th-this is bad! General, you have to pull your troops back! At this rate, we’ll get slaughtered!” Once the imperials on the left flank were driven off, the enemy soldiers on that mountain turned their attention to the central area where Gascorge and the others were. Face pale, Erik offered his counsel, but Gascorge didn’t make any hasty decisions. Instead, he glanced over at Sai. “Heh. A fair point. Sai, how would you have us handle the situation?” “There’s only one thing to be done,” Sai replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We brute-force our way right through. Yup.” “What?!” Erik’s eyes went wide, but Sai continued without paying him any mind. “The gunports on top of the stronghold are still usable, so I doubt the structure is actually filled to the brim with sandbags. They can’t be stacked higher than thirty feet at most. Yup. “Knowing that, the first thing we should do is concentrate our cannon fire on the top part of the stronghold where those pesky gunners and archers are set up. Once we destroy the top sections, our soldiers can scale the rubble. It’s a perfectly viable strategy. After all, no fort stands forever.” “Th-that might work eventually, but the losses we’ll suffer in the meantime will be unthinkable!” Erik protested. “So what? Dying is part of your job.” “What…?!” “Our enemies never intended to use the Byakkokan Checkpoint as a proper fortress. They’re unlikely to bother defending it to the bitter end. Rather, they know that defending it to the death isn’t an option. Yup. “The enemy leader clearly knows what is and isn’t within his forces’ capabilities. He won’t go for unsound gambits in a battle like this, and he’s not searching for easy wins. Thus, outflanking him won’t work. It’d just end up with us throwing away time and lives for nothing. Our best play is to crush him with superior numbers. “Greasing the fallen sand with the blood of our soldiers will make it that much easier to climb. We’ll pave ourselves a path to victory with imperial flesh and blood. Yup. This is what war is all about. That’s what makes it so wonderful.” “Heh. I see.” Gascorge’s eyes narrowed in satisfaction… …and he raised his sledgehammer up by the side of his head. A moment later, something smashed into it and shattered it to pieces. “A-ahhh! Wh-what’s going on?! Are we being sniped?!” Erik trembled with fear, but his superior’s smile broadened. “Ah, so we, too, get to drink deep of the sweet wine of battle. My heart is racing already.” Gascorge cast aside his destroyed sledgehammer, mounted his monoceros, and took up its reins. “General Gascorge, where are you going?!” “Tell the soldiers to continue their assault, Erik. I’m going to go meddle on the left flank for a bit. Now that we know we’re not getting through that checkpoint anytime soon, our forces on the sides are more important than ever. On his own, Balentien doesn’t have the troops to hold out.” “………” Tsukasa frowned after trying to snipe the man who appeared to be the enemy leader from one of the Byakkokan Checkpoint’s watchtowers with one of Ringo’s specially made rifles. The man had blocked his shot. Tsukasa pulled himself together and peered through his scope with the intention of aiming his second shot at the turban-clad man beside the giant. However, he soon shifted his gunsight. Why even take the shot? I’d just be wasting a bullet. Their gazes had met through the scope. More than 6,500 feet separated them, yet after a single shot, Tsukasa’s enemies zeroed in on him. The bald giant was one thing, but the short guy with his head wrapped was clearly a force to be reckoned with, too. The empire was nothing to be trifled with, not if they still had people of Gustav’s capability up its sleeve. I don’t have time to waste fixating on dangerous individual opponents. For the imperial nationals who were dying before his very eyes, the war to retake Yamato was a meaningless battle without merit. The conflict’s purpose was to fulfill the ambitions of a single mage who came from another world. Tsukasa needed to end the fighting as quickly as he possibly could. To that end… Where’s Neuro? …he searched the enemy army for the Blue Grandmaster. Killing that man would force the conflict to conclude. According to Yggdra, the whole reason the empire sought to retake Yamato was to revive the otherworldly mage known as the evil dragon who existed within Emperor Lindworm. Simply put, the evil dragon faction was fighting for personal gain. The imperial nobles, on the other hand, had no attachment to Yamato whatsoever. If anything, they wanted nothing to do with it. That meant there was room for reconciliation.