🍖🍖🍖
“THE Eylish army is making a sortie?” I said.
I was at a war council, and I was taken aback. I had been advancing slowly specifically in the hopes of getting an offer of peace, so why were they attacking now? I couldn’t understand what they were aiming for.
“Hah, they must’ve gotten scared of Your Majesty’s Eyland Purification Project,” Chrom said with a scoff. “They know if we continue our awe-inspiring strategy, Eylish territory will only become more and more like Farune.”
Whoa, hold on. Even in Farune, ordinary citizens don’t eat monsters. And by the way, I wasn’t the one who came up with that evil plan.
“The enemy was lured out, exactly as Your Majesty wanted. Now, all that’s left to do is to destroy them!” Ogma declared, raising a fist. My other subordinates followed suit, like it was only natural.
Hmm, I don’t know about that. We aren’t as strong as they are in magic. Are you sure you aren’t selling them short?
“Frau and the others haven’t gotten back yet,” I said, calmly pointing out a valid cause for worry. “We’ll be at a disadvantage in a magic fight.”
“As long as you don’t get hit by a spell, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Warren said, which was a patently ridiculous solution. But, everyone was nodding along.
Is it that easy to dodge spells? Well, I can do it, but that’s not the point.
“Their army is ten times the size of ours. You shouldn’t disregard our numerical disadvantage,” I said. Because the enemy was so much more numerous than we were, the fact that we were the ones invading them was abnormal to begin with. These guys should take that part a bit more seriously.
“Don’t worry, we only have to take down ten of them each,” Ogma said, casually accepting the challenge. “It’ll be a walk in the park.”
What I’m trying to say is that it’s wrong for a military to think that way!
“If the Eylish army is going on the offensive again after momentarily withdrawing, that means they must have some sort of plan,” I said. “You shouldn’t underestimate them.”
I was trying to urge further caution, but no one around me got the message. The mood in the council was more like, “Your Majesty is quite careful indeed.”
They’re getting carried away. Now if only that ever got them into trouble, even once…
“Fine, if you all insist, then I’ll leave it up to you,” I relented. “Go then, and defeat the whole Eylish army.”
I spoke dismissively, but despite that—
“Yes, sir!” my retainers energetically responded, and they rushed out.
I wished they’d pay a bit more attention to their king’s tone.
✦ ✦ ✦
🍖🍖🍖
THE Lind Plain in central Eyland was a region with gently sloping terrain, and the substantial height of the grass that carpeted the landscape allowed for even adults to crouch down and hide in its midst. In this way, the Eylish and Farunian armies met face to face in a spot with somewhat poor visibility.
The forthcoming fight was to be called the Battle of Lind Plain.
In contrast with the Eylish army’s thirty thousand, the Farunian army was three thousand strong, a tenfold discrepancy. But despite their overwhelming disadvantage, the Farunian army made the first assault. The Black Knights, commanded by Chrom, and the Red Knights, commanded by Warren, led the attack.
Each force was composed of one thousand cavalry, and they approached the Eylish army from both sides, the Black Knights taking the left flank, and the Red Knights taking the right. Just as Warren had promised, they easily avoided spells cast at them from the Eylish lines, and their momentum showed no signs of stopping. Then, just when they were about to make contact with the enemy, the knights at the head of the army, along with their horses, suddenly tumbled to the ground. And it didn’t stop there. The knights following them were felled too, one after another.
“What’s the meaning of this?!”
Chrom and Warren each shouted the same thing from their separate positions. Mars’s warning flashed across both of their minds and they wondered: Do they really have a plan? A chill ran down Chrom’s spine, and he hurriedly issued an order.
“Stop, stop, I tell you! And bring everyone who fell with you!”
The Black Knights halted their charge and began to recover the injured—and those who did so fell to the ground.
“What’s that?” Chrom had noticed that the unit on the front line of Eyland’s army carried strange weapons. Not only that, but they had crouched down to hide in the grass, making their very existence hard to detect.
Chrom dismounted from his horse and rushed over to help his fallen subordinates. Just then, something flew at him out of nowhere. He reflexively swiped it away with his sword. Bows and arrows? No…crossbows?
Technically, he was a soldier, more or less, so he knew about crossbows. However, the weapon had hardly ever been used in combat in the once-remote Farune, so he didn’t have any concrete information about them.
The crossbow bolts now being fired at him in quick succession were shorter and thicker than regular arrows. He somehow managed to defend against them, but it demanded a considerable amount of strength and technique. The soldiers operating the crossbows also hardly made any preparatory movements, so it was difficult for Chrom to ascertain the timing of their shots. They were shifting ranks to fire at him in turns, so he had no opportunities to rush them, either.
This is bad. You’d have to be a highly ranked member of the Hundred to deal with this. Accurately grasping the threat the crossbows posed, Chrom raised his voice:
“Retreat! Run away!”
The Black Knights obeyed and began to withdraw all at once. But three thousand Eylish cavalry pursued them in an attempt to keep them from escaping. They were led by one of the Three Counts, Count Wolf.
“Bring the hammer of justice down on the Farunian devils!” he shouted.
Then he began a fierce assault, as if to vent his pent-up frustration. However, as was to be expected, the Black Knights had the upper hand in a close-quarters fight, and once they were out of the range of the crossbows, they fought on equal or greater footing, even against a force three times their size. After a brief clash, Count Wolf saw that he couldn’t beat them and called off his pursuit.
“Tch.” He clicked his tongue in frustration. “They’re still strong. Is this as far as I can go?”
When the Eylish soldiers stopped their pursuit, the Black Knights pulled out.
Something similar had happened to the Red Knights on the right flank. Count Broome commanded the Eylish cavalry on that side, and after meeting resistance from the Red Knights, he too gave up on his pursuit. However, from the Farunian army’s perspective, this was an unprecedentedly great loss.
As for the center, Ogma had led the Hundred on a charge. They weren’t mounted, so they lagged behind the knights on both flanks, but they took the full brunt of the crossbows, just like the knights. Ogma, Aaron, and the others on the same level as the First Five could have brushed aside the crossbow fire and rushed the enemy. However, the top-ranking members of the Hundred were stopped in their tracks by an intense, concentrated barrage of spells, just as the others were felled by the crossbows. Even the self-assured Ogma realized the situation put them at a disadvantage, and he ordered a retreat.
“Damn, it won’t be good if this continues!” he called. “For now, let’s run away!”
The Hundred withdrew, carrying their injured on their shoulders.
“Not on my watch.”
Here, the young Count Godwin embarked on an all-out attack, seeking to avenge his father. He commanded ten thousand soldiers, most of them heavily-armed infantry. In contrast, the Hundred were only around one thousand strong. The force ten times their size descended upon them.
The Black and Red Knights had been mounted, so they had been able to quickly flee crossbow range, but as the Hundred were on foot, the crossbow unit stayed hot on their heels. The Hundred put up a last-ditch resistance, but under spell and crossbow fire while being chased by an enemy ten times their size, they couldn’t escape their unfavorable position.