Even though their weapons hadn’t reached the enemy, the enemy had always seemed to find their mark. If this had happened to a normal unit, they might have panicked, unable to tell right from left in their confusion, but Thutmose’s army was made up of highly skilled, battle-hardened professionals paid handsomely for their services. Thutmose himself had built rapport with each one and had earned their loyalty. If he gave the order for them to kill themselves, they would do so in a heartbeat. That unwavering devotion was just another factor that made them the strongest unit around, Thutmose’s pride and joy.
“Fight back!” he shouted, but his order was suddenly drowned out by a rumbling from within the elite guard unit. Thutmose had no idea what had happened—it seemed like the enemy had thrown some sort of spherical object. The soldiers had dodged it, but in the next instant, a roar split the air like thunder, and the surrounding soldiers all went flying, their uniforms and skin burnt black. A second explosion followed, causing more of Thutmose’s soldiers to fly through the air. The enemy soldiers then charged forward on horseback. Each of them seemed to have mastered the art of horseback riding—Thutmose’s bodyguards may have been the cream of the crop, but their enemy’s horsemanship alone caused them to panic.
“D-Don’t be fooled! The enemy is few in number! If we maintain our composure, we’ll surely win!”
“Ha ha, unfortunately for you, the great Homura and her friends aren’t so generous as to let the enemy rest up.”
“Huh?! Gahhh!” Suddenly, he heard a female voice from behind, and the next thing he knew, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. The last thing he saw before his consciousness left him was the face of a stunningly beautiful girl with long, flowing black hair.
“One Thutmose III, captured alive, as requested!” Hearing Homura’s cheery voice, Nozomu breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed his shoulders—
Thonk! Which got him a whack on the head. “Fool. Don’t let your guard down just because we’ve won. Did I not teach you that one should always be prepared for a counterattack?” his instructor Sigrún said with a sigh. It was true—capturing the enemy army’s commander did not prevent their men from staging an attempt to rescue him. The fight was not yet over for them. He’d been too quick to relax.
“Now then, to all enemy soldiers. Lay down your weapons, get on your knees, and put your hands behind your back. Obey me, and I guarantee the life of your pharaoh!” Yuuto’s voice, amplified with a megaphone, echoed throughout the battlefield. As if on cue, the enemy soldiers, apparently realizing there was no other way out, immediately tossed their weapons aside and got down on the ground as instructed.
“Is anyone wounded?” Sigrún asked. Replies of “nope” and “not at all” came from here and there. Apparently, there had been no casualties on Yuuto’s side, which was even more unbelievable to Nozomu. “It was fifteen against one thousand, and no one was even hurt?!” He felt like he was dreaming, but honestly, he wouldn’t have believed it even in his wildest dreams.
Yuuto then appeared before him, back to his usual nonchalant tone. “Oh, Nozomu. Looks like you’re unharmed. Thank goodness.” He’d just achieved a victory worthy of being recorded in history books, and he was acting like it was no big deal. He wasn’t whooping, hollering, or celebrating—that fact in itself was perhaps the scariest thing of all.
“Wow, dad, that was incredible. You made it look so easy.”
“Oh, that? That wasn’t anything special. If you look at history, others have used horses to stage landslide victories without anyone getting injured as well, one even being two thousand against seventeen. Not to mention I’ve got the technology of the future on my side, as well as a multitude of Einherjar, and my own special power.”
Yuuto waved it off like it was nothing, but Nozomu couldn’t see it as anything but remarkable. “It’s like he really is a war god...” Plenty of people had explained his father’s peerless nature to him, but it had always seemed like a fairy tale—a story with only a grain of truth, embellished to facilitate the management of the nation. He’d never dreamed he’d be shown a divine feat even more amazing than the ones in the stories!
“Well, you know how it is. Use one cheat after another, and you’re sure to win,” his father humbly said, but even Nozomu could tell there was more to it than that. His sense of timing and distance had been perfect—he’d always had the horse-drawn carriage precisely where only his side was able to attack, yet not far away enough that the enemy had thought they couldn’t catch up. Then, when he’d seen his opportunity, he’d abandoned the carriage and encircled the enemy on horseback, taking them by complete surprise. Even after that, he’d maintained enough distance to constantly rain arrows down on the enemy, thrown the enemy’s men into a panic using tetsuhaus, and subsequently took that opportunity to charge forward, putting the enemy commander right in Homura’s clutches.
It certainly sounded simple enough when put into words, and he knew that his father had merely made use of tactics like the “Parthian Shot” and “Fisher and Bandit,” but the fact that he’d had the skill to implement them practically and gotten real people to dance to his tune as a result was more than impressive. It was almost as if he was always able to see the battlefield, and the positions of both ally and enemy, from overhead. A greenhorn like Nozomu had a hard time putting it into words, and perhaps because he’d had a front-row seat to witness the spectacle, he was so entranced by the magic of his dad’s military prowess that he wouldn’t have been able to anyway.