Chapter 352
Chapter 352
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Saint and Completer (8)
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A wide but damp and stuffy tent.
Large wooden pieces representing each unit were placed on a massive map, and knights, still clad in their armor, had been engaged in a heated discussion until our arrival made them all fall silent as if on cue.
“Lord Agate. That man... don’t tell me...?”
“It’s who you think it is. The saint of the Radiant Church, Professor. He arrived in Lordric this morning along with the supplies.”
Whoosh!
“I believed the Saint would come with us! After all, he descended from the heavens!”
“Thank you for coming! Castle Knight, Siran Calrad!”
“Save the greetings for later. I need a moment alone with the Saint, so if you could step out... And while you’re at it, please get some rest yourselves.”
“But—”
“That’s an order. Or do you have the rank and authority to join a conversation between the Radiant Church’s Saint and Lordric’s commander?”
“...We’ll wait outside.”
At Charlotte’s icy tone, the knights saluted sharply and filed out of the tent.
As Charlotte took her seat at the head of the table, one of the knights who had just left returned to set down tea in front of me and soup with bread in front of her before withdrawing.
“...It’s hardly a meal fit for a saint.”
“Good lord, any priest who complains about modest fare on the battlefield gets strung up. I skipped breakfast myself, so let’s eat and talk. Hey! If there’s a holy knight outside, bring me some food too!”
“Yes!!! We shall prepare the finest holy meal to honor the Saint’s word—”
“I knew these guys would pull this. I told them not to hover around me and go help the priests instead! Just follow the damn Saint’s word! I don’t need guards! Go! Get lost!”
“W-We shall obey!”
Just in case, I’d called out, and sure enough. The footsteps weren’t from just one person—they’d skipped their purification duties to stick to me as bodyguards.
Soon after, a holy knight came rushing in with a thudding gait, plunked down a hearty soup loaded with chunks and some bread in front of me, and left. As I sighed deeply, Charlotte’s voice, laced with amusement, approached from across the table.
“You have loyal subordinates.”
“Loyal, my ass. I’ve told them I don’t need guards—that even their entire Holy Knight Order couldn’t protect me—and they still won’t listen.”
“Heh heh heh. Their actions may differ, but their hearts are aligned. You can see their admiration in their envious gazes—they respect you.”
“Damn it. Fine, let’s say that’s true. Ah, so this on the table is the situation board?”
“Correct. Square pieces are our forces, round ones are the enemy.”
The pieces the knights had been shifting moments ago were scattered chaotically across the map, but it was easy enough to grasp the general frontline shape.
“...Is this for real?”
“...Eat first, then talk. Enemy raids are so irregular you have to fill up whenever you can.”
“No, this isn’t the time to eat! What the hell is this? Who the fuck turned the frontline into this mess? We’re winning, right? We’re supposed to be winning! It said so in official Church reports, not just rumors!”
“...That’s why I said eat first.”
I understood why she’d said that as I watched her turn away in disgust and spoon up her soup.
The Lordric map, covered in all sorts of markers and pieces.
Looking at our frontline as depicted on it, my appetite vanished.
****
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.
“These round pillars represent the enemy offensive’s core: the Chamber Maids.”
“Offensive? Not defense?”
“I’ll explain in detail afterward. And like this—the enemies split into the Western Front and Kingsland around the Chamber Maids. That’s the frontline from about two months ago.”
Charlotte, clearly versed not just in Lordric but the broader war situation, moved the pieces fluidly.
“...Not bad?”
“Not bad at all. Things actually looked pretty hopeful back then. The named monsters’ raids, which had been popping up constantly and devastating our forces, dropped by more than half. Elite mutant units like the Blue Mantises and Frontline Breakers also slowed down, letting us reclaim lost territory, recover from near-annihilation, and even take down a few Chamber Maids.”
It looked solid to anyone. Holding strong around the castles, improving our exchange ratio with the enemy, and with their elites easing off, we had breathing room to send hero units on infiltration missions to decapitate the top priority: the Chamber Maids. If we solidified the line and bolstered defenses with reinforcements from the Empire, we could advance slowly and safely for more gains...
Clack. Clack. Swipe. Swiiipe—
But as she continued moving the pieces, both her face and mine twisted in revulsion, like we’d stumbled on something nauseating.
“I was so shocked earlier I barely registered it, but... it’s real.”
The sturdy outposts linking castles on the Western Front and Lordric had suddenly stretched east toward Lordric’s eastern edge, forming a crane-wing formation sprawled out like a picnic. The extended line thinned the troops holding each point, outposts fell cutting supply lines, reinforcements became impossible, and some castles ended up isolated with Chamber Maids planted between them, walled off.
The allied formation, once a masterpiece of balanced distribution and positioning, had become a thin, elongated mess—some parts idle, others dying. Supplies that once flowed smoothly to all castles via just two routes to the Western Front and Kingsland now splintered to feed the stretched line everywhere, only to get ambushed and wiped out. That was the current situation.
“Spies.”
“...Professor.”
“Has to be spies! That fucker—you know the one! Skin Crawler, Insomnia Crab, all those bastards that eat and puppet people! No way that shit came from our side! I’ll send the heresy inquisitors right now to purge them all—!”
“No spies, no puppets. Teldrat’s relief force commander-in-chief, Zigis Palem, devised the ‘Encirclement Annihilation’ plan with a perfectly clear mind, got majority approval from the attending commanders, and issued the orders.”
“Then those guys are all spies! There’s this bastard called Valkatus over there—no, was—and he must’ve pulled some shady shit again—”
“Professor. Including me, all commanders undergo regular checks by priests from each church. Mutants, offspring of evil gods, can’t evade their eyes.”
“Then why the fuck did they vote for that clusterfuck of a plan? Any village vigilante who trained a month wouldn’t pull that stupid shit!”
Huff, huff.
I needed to calm down. The troops, who’d looked like dead fish at the rumor of the Saint descending by flying ship, had barely perked up—and if the Saint started yelling “We’re fucked!” the moment he arrived, morale would plummet to the abyss! I’d been trying to project calm hope!
‘This... is disastrously fucked.’
In just a few months, a healthy frontline had turned into a critical patient rammed by a five-ton truck at full speed. Damn it! Fucking hell!
‘Two months. No, it really kicked off a month ago. Exactly when I was moving through the desert.’
What pissed me off more was that I could’ve prevented it.
After wrapping up in the Empire, atop Astrad’s hot air balloon, I’d chosen: head to the Eastern Desert or straight to Lordric?
I picked the desert, killing Valkatus, enemy elites, and named monsters, uncovering GG’s truth and acquiring the Oil Mage—an S+++ strategic weapon.
But that left the Lordric option to score a historic own-goal hat trick.
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.
Reading the flow, I could guess their thinking.
Months ago, our round, thick formation blocked the enemy spearhead thrusting from the Chamber Maids. It looked like if we pushed our line rightward a bit, our flanks might touch the enemy’s rear.
Superficially, textbook hammer-and-anvil: Castle Knights and Lordric’s elite knights as world-class anvil holding the enemy, while Western Front and new eastern wing hammers enveloped with mobility and crushed them.
Problem: the enemy offensive core, Chamber Maids, weren’t like our castle strongholds.
‘They’re not just buildings. They spawn troops, absorb nutrients! Chamber Maids are all-in-one factories pumping out supplies and reinforcements! Human castles starve if encircled, but encircling those gives zero benefit!’
Fine, encirclement aside. With such a thin, wide line, they should’ve concentrated on the flanks, gone all-in for annihilation today—accept losses while Kingsland anvil held, smashing in a quick decisive battle!
But as extension piled up casualties, ‘Uh oh, not working?’—they peeled off flank hammer forces to prop the crumbling line. Thus, a thin, wide, pointless net formed, leading to this shitshow.
Even Kingsland’s hero units got dispersed on that op. No wonder the sturdy Knight Kingdom’s capital got wrecked.
...What a farce.
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- Take a Look: Mudaguchi Renya in the afterlife must be flipping in excitement—finally, a commander to rival him.
- Jokass: Coming to Lordric meant gaining an ironclad allied force bolstered by Empire troops, instead of facing all the named and elites you should’ve died to in the desert. Wonder which was the real win.
- professor: ...Search the community for Teldrat commander-in-chief ‘Zigis Palem’. Is he in the 3rd World nobility registry?
- Jokass: Yeah.
- professor: How much of an idiot is he? Weaknesses? Family size, territory scale?
- Jokass: Thing is... it’s weird. Palem family. One of Teldrat’s founding功臣, hereditary dukes. Hold a rare highland estate where cool and hot air mix, got rich on medicinal herbs. And... he’s supposed to be smart?
- professor: Bullshit. How’s a renewal Mudaguchi smart?
- Heung An Mandu: It’s true. Pretty famous guy—weak body, but sharp operator, most reviews say.
- professor: Is that reliable? Community’s full of hearsay crap.
- Heung An Mandu: Solid. Uh... yeah, solid. 100%.
- professor: What’s with the wishy-washy tone?
- Jokass: Look it up later. It’s legit. I vouch.
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Source dubious, but they all agree: our renewal Mudaguchi is surprisingly smart and capable.
Regular priest checks rule out brain-parasite spy.
A smart guy doodling on a small board wouldn’t make something uglier than that.
“...That motherfucker?”
He did it on purpose.
A battlefield confined to Lordric, contained by quick response and alliance.
A protracted war.
And a situation so dominant, intel agencies were saying ‘victory in sight’.
Victory looming, Lordric drained and neutered.
“...Who were the allied commanders who approved?”
“Teldrat relief commander Zigis Palem. Free Trade Alliance commander Duehr Pel. All nearby small-nation commanders centered on them. Churches abstained.”
“Basically everyone but the churches. Ha, those noble bastards...!”
All signs pointed one way.
Nations prioritize self-interest above all.
At first, when Lordric’s territory crumbled like dry earth, they sent relief in shock. But after a year and a half of fighting confined to Lordric, and with ‘victory in grasp’ rumors, they started eyeing Lordric’s pockets.
“We held too damn well....”
Old gossip or news sometimes showed smarter guys than me doing idiotic shit. Were they really dumb? Dig deeper, and their unseen gains justified the embarrassment.
Teldrat’s Zigis Palem’s dogshit was that: end in sight, time to ‘stake claims’.
I eyed the board pieces symbolizing the long frontline. Teldrat-adjacent sectors packed with Teldrat relief troops; Free Trade zones with theirs.
War ends, human era returns—they’ll reclaim the wastes, rebuild villages, resettle empties, squat permanently.
Protest? Ruined Lordric royals who sold everything have no clout. No UN here.
“Ugh, makes my skin crawl. Fucking nobles are disgusting.”
“I did say eat first, then talk.”
Charlotte eyed the soup bowl I’d pushed away, unable to swallow.
“Anyway, recovering this stretched line is several times harder. Mutants have entrenched between gaps long ago; one misstep, and thin lines snap, leading to total wipes.”
“No doubt. Cleaning shit’s always harder and messier than shitting.”
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack....
Deep in thought, the Lordric piece at Kingsland tapped the map for minutes.
The Professor pocketed it and shot to his feet.
“Let’s go.”
“Go? Where?”
“Where else? To His Majesty King Shiod IV. And why’s the Knight Commander scheming in this smelly, damp tent instead of that fine castle?”
“...His Highness greatly fears the smell of blood.”
“...Lordric’s Knight King?”
“He lost brothers and father before his young eyes. Don’t judge through colored lenses.”
“Fine... whatever. Point is, let’s go. I’ll cure His Majesty’s hemophobia with some mystical saintly power while we’re at it.”
No matter how I thought, he was the only way out.
‘Battlefield’s Lordric. Biggest victim: Lordric. Center of the line: Lordric. If the king speaks up, he’ll have a voice!’
Wheedle him into a real commander—even a quarter of Guy Nexus’s half-assed version.
If he won’t come out, smash that castle and drag him.
No other path visible.
****
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