At long last, the day we would leave the fortified city of Zurück and make for the imperial capital was upon us. The main forces stood ready for departure, having formed ranks through the center of the city. The streets were already near capacity from the sizable number of soldiers, so only a minimal send-off was allowed.
The soldiers stood at attention and listened.
“Soldiers, I thank you all for gathering here today.”
Philine’s voice was soft but carried majesty. A wind mage had created a wide-reaching telepathic channel to bring her voice to all the soldiers so she could give a speech before the march.
“Standing with us now are not only imperial soldiers but our new brethren from Bauer as well. They too have my thanks. Our countries have been at war for some time. I understand some of you have reservations with regard to fighting alongside old foes. But let’s save those reservations for after our battle. Now we must fight as one for humanity.”
A temporary alliance had been struck between Bauer and Nur. To tell the truth, many of my fellow citizens still had misgivings about those from Nur. The schemes the country had enacted against Bauer couldn’t be forgotten overnight, after all.
“I feel sincere remorse for the aggressive actions my mother Dorothea Nur undertook and am fully willing to pay due reparations. But if we fall to the demons here, then there will be nothing to be done. Please, everyone, lend me your strength.”
Philine’s address to the Bauer soldiers carried weight. She truly believed the unity of the forces was paramount.
An address to the imperial soldiers followed. “Brave soldiers of the empire, from this day forward, you need not lay hands on your fellow man ever again. From now on, we fight only humanity’s common enemy, the demon army. Our empire has invaded numerous neighboring countries. The intent was to create a unified, powerful nation that could oppose the Demon Queen, but that can never justify the suffering we have caused. But know this, my dear soldiers: You need not carry the burden of our sins. The one who ordered such terror was the throne itself. As loyal soldiers, you had no choice but to obey. Instead, I beg you to find it in yourselves to forgive us for ever delivering such orders.”
Philine tried to alleviate the soldiers’ guilt, if even just a bit. As the new leader, she could have easily deflected the blame onto the old regime, but instead, she chose to bear the cross.
“I know I cannot convince all of you. Some of you will still blame yourselves for the things that have been done.”
I recalled General Sascha, who had willingly given his life during the invasion of the capital, voicing such sentiments. As we parted, he said: “It is the duty of an imperial soldier to protect the lives of the empire’s citizens. After causing nothing but harm to the citizens of other countries, we can finally fulfill our purpose. Please allow us to carry out our duty.”
As someone from Bauer, a nation on the receiving end of the empire’s aggression, as well as someone who had been forced to directly fight the empire’s schemes during the revolution, I found it hard to forgive its soldiers. But I also understood they weren’t wholly without doubts about their actions. I just wish they had acted on those doubts.
“But if you still find yourself racked with guilt, then please, let this battle be your atonement. Fight to protect humanity, friends, neighbors, comrades, and your new Bauer allies. Let your past deeds be absolved with each wound you earn protecting another.”
Philine craftily stirred her soldiers, turning their latent guilt into further fuel for battle.
“We shall take back our capital from the one who proclaims herself the enemy of humanity! We shall take back Ruhm from the Demon Queen!” Philine’s voice grew impassioned as her speech reached its climax. “By the honor of my mother, who died dreaming of a brighter tomorrow for humanity, we shall strike down the Demon Queen! My friends of Bauer, my soldiers of Nur, let us restore peace to mankind!”
The soldiers raised a cheer in response.
“Individually, we are weaker than the demons. But when we join hands, we are without equal. This is not newly true; it has been so since the days of old. Let us join hands with those who lived before us and crush the Demon Queen with the weight of mankind’s history.”
In other words, she was saying the soldiers would fight imbued with the will of those who had come before them.
“The time is now. Our foe is great, but I know our unified strength will triumph.” She paused for a moment, then proclaimed, “Humanity’s future rides on this battle! Let us seize victory for the sake of a tomorrow—one we save for our families, our neighbors, our friends! Forward, march!”
The soldiers raised a grand cheer in response, and the front of the line began to move. At last, we were off.
“Well done, Philine,” Claire said.
“That was a good speech,” I said.
“Aaah, thank you…”
While this reveal comes a bit late, Claire and I were actually with Philine, who only moments ago had been boldly giving a speech but had now deflated back to her old ditzy self. The two of us had helped draft her speech.
Philine was clad in magic armor like her mother’s, only Philine’s was white. She looked something like those dignified female knights you often saw in manga, only her current limp exhaustion reminded me more of that disgraced knight cliche where they begged for death over humiliation after being beaten in battle.
“I was so nervous… Does it look like it went over well with the soldiers, Claire?” she asked.
“Everyone seems to be in high spirits to me,” Claire confirmed. “There are no volunteer soldiers, everyone being either Nur soldiers or Rod’s forces, so they’re well trained and know how to bolster their morale.”
“I can’t speak as to whether they’ll all fight to their last breath, but it doesn’t seem like we have to worry about any chain desertions,” I said.
“Phew… Thank goodness…” Philine breathed a sigh of relief, reminding me of a new company hire who had just finished giving their first presentation. She had already given a speech when the capital got taken though, so, like, pull yourself together already, c’mon.
“Were you really that worried?” I asked.
“Of course! Putting the Nur soldiers aside, the Bauer soldiers are being made to fight alongside their mortal enemies, and that’s with our capital being the only thing damaged so far!”
She did have a point. The only country really under the gun here was the empire; it would be a while before any danger came Bauer’s way.
“That’s not true,” Claire said. “The Bauer soldiers also heard the Demon Queen’s proclamation. And I’m sure they feel the pressure after seeing her freeze Mt. Sassal.”
“Oh, yeah, that happened,” I said.
“I suppose you’re right,” Philine said.
The Demon Queen’s power reached from the capital to distant Bauer. Nowhere was safe at this point.
“At any rate, we should try to reach the capital as fast as we can,” Claire said. “If we take too long, friction might arise amidst the troops.”
“You’re right. But our enemy will be fighting us full force this time… I’m a little worried,” Philine said meekly. I thought she might as well commit to the bit and plead for the end already.
“Pull yourself together and stand proud. You’re this army’s commander, aren’t you?” Claire said.
“I asked you to be, but you refused…”
“Claire can’t be the commander,” I said. “The commander draws the most aggro.”
“Aggro…?” Philine echoed.
“Oh, sorry. The commander gets targeted the most.”
An army couldn’t afford to let their commander die, naturally, but even injuring or taking them hostage could make an army crumble.
“Besides, with her strength, Claire’s best left free to operate as she pleases,” I said.
“I know, but still…” It seemed Philine still hadn’t fully recovered from ditz-mode. “I wonder if Mother ever worried like this,” she mumbled.
“I get the impression she wasn’t one to do so,” Claire said.
“Figures… She was a genius…unlike me…” Philine sighed, growing more dejected by the minute.
“There’s no reason you have to be like Dorothea,” I said. “You can lead everyone your own way.”
“I can’t do that…”
“You can. You may not have charisma, but you do have a different trait that makes people want to follow you.”
Philine’s downcast face shot up, her eyes full of expectation. “R-really?! I do?!”
“You naturally make people want to protect you.”
“Whaaaat, that’s basically saying I look helpless!” She slumped her head back down.
“Hold on, Rae,” Claire said. “You wouldn’t happen to be toying with Philine under the guise of trying to cheer her up, would you?”
“Oh, you could tell?”
“Don’t ‘you could tell?’ me!” she snapped.
“Waaaaaah!” Philine began to bawl her eyes out.
Perhaps I’d taken my teasing too far. “But look,” I said, “in all seriousness, you’re a lot more suited for the current situation than Dorothea.”
Philine sniffled. “What makes you say that?”
“I mean, c’mon, even with all this impending doom going on, could you really see Bauer’s forces joining hands with Nur’s if Dorothea were at the helm, after all she did to us?”
“Oh.”
“That’s…true,” Claire reluctantly admitted.
It wasn’t all that hard to imagine. Even if you touted it as “for the sake of humanity’s future” and all that, there were more than a few emotional hiccups that just couldn’t be handwaved.
“But your record is as spotless as they come, and again, you have that quality that makes people want to support you. You’re perfect,” I said.
“Why do I feel like you’re still making fun of me?” she said, not wholly convinced.
“C’mon, all that’s left is for you to get a little used to things. Not even Miss Claire was the super-composed person she is today from the get-go.”
“Really?”
“Really. When I first met her, she was infatuated with bullying me, and—”
“Don’t lie!” Claire interjected. “You were the one infatuated with me bullying you!”
“Just what is your relationship?” Philine asked, physically recoiling a little.
“Anyway, as long as you keep quiet, you can pass for a laudable, dignified, female knight. Just leave commanding the army to Master Rod and Hilda,” I said.
“I-I see,” she said with understanding. She finally seemed to recover her willpower.
“Rae and I will be getting ready to depart soon. It’s time for our battle to finally begin.”
“This is the moment our love will be tested, Miss Claire.”
“Can’t you two go flirt in front of someone else…?”
While momentarily derailed because I had decided to cheer up Philine, I ultimately managed to restore my Clairecium values. I thought I heard some grumblings from Philine, but that follow-up is a story for another day.