Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: One-Man Army
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* * *
This wasn't the kind of fear that made one wonder if they would be next. No, it wasn't even fear to begin with.
It was no metaphor. Death, literally inescapable, was being scattered in every direction.
`Gatling-type,` `20mm.`
The essence of slaughter, unleashed by Dale as he focused his consciousness on the incantation, all while under the protection of his subordinates.
The Gatling gun. The first weapon of mass destruction (WMD).
In a way, it surpassed anything the people of this world could imagine as 'mass destruction magic'.
Multiple black barrels endlessly sprayed bullets of darkness. Shadow Bullets. There was no need to worry about the number of rounds. Following Dale's feet, endlessly swirling shadows were crafted into hundreds of bullets, raining down without cease.
A hail of 20mm shadow bullets.
“Aaargh!”
“It hurts, it hurts!”
Gunshots rang out, and screams echoed. Skulls shattered, brains splattered, bones broke, and armor crumbled. Entrails spilled out in streams, and a rain of blood poured down.
Those who died instantly, unable to even scream, were the lucky ones.
There was a man dragging himself across the ground, his legs gone. Another desperately tried to stuff his spilling intestines back into a bullet hole in his armor. Some sobbed, crying out for their mothers.
A river of blood.
The cavalry’s wedge formation, intended to decisively break through the Black Armor Company's dense line, had instead offered itself up as a perfect target for Dale.
And by the time the firing ceased, not one of the 2,000 enemy soldiers standing before the Black Armor Company dared to approach.
It had been but a moment.
In the brief instant it took for the cavalry to close the few hundred meters, the entire unit had been annihilated.
How could this be described as anything other than 'mass destruction magic'?
“How can he use mass destruction magic…”
“The, the Imperial Court said so! The eldest son of House Sachsen has th-three Circles…”
“Don’t be ridiculous! How is that the work of a 3rd-Circle mage?!”
It should have been. But what stood before them now was the very definition of mass destruction magic, the kind a high-circle mage would unleash on a battlefield.
A hush fell. But the work of the Black Armor Company’s captain, the ‘Black Prince,’ was not yet over. No, it had not even truly begun.
Dale snapped his fingers. Toward the shadow cloak fluttering at his feet.
“Rise, my children.”
And toward the ‘Shadow Bullets’ that had become 20mm rounds, now scattered across the field.
「Kieeeeek!」
At Dale's command, the ‘Shadow Bullets’ embedded in the cavalrymen’s bodies began to rejoice. They were not mere bullets. They were a swarm of living shadows, teeming with horrific malice.
The living bullets of darkness began to rampage within the cavalrymen’s bodies.
The second form of the Shadow Cloak. Shadow Parasite.
Again, the dead were the fortunate ones. The living had to writhe in the agony of having their insides eaten away.
“Hungry, hungry, hungry!”
“So hungry!”
The corpses of the cavalrymen, which should have been lying dead, rose to their feet, letting out shrieks that were not of this world.
The shadows had taken root, using the bodies of the cavalrymen, who should have died riddled with Shadow Bullets, as hosts. They had become puppets of endless hunger and darkness, dancing like marionettes.
Dale’s shadow cloak billowed, though there was not even a breeze.
‘I can control them reasonably well, even from this distance.’
He thought, observing the hosts of the Shadow Parasites rising all around.
Without a shred of emotion, Dale assessed his own capabilities.
‘Can I add modifications to this?’
A mental bias to induce the ‘individuality and form of magic’ that suited his purpose.
The distance was considerable, and there were just over a hundred hosts for the Shadow Parasites. And toward them, Dale focused his consciousness once more.
*Crack! Crack! Crack!*
The bodies of the dead twisted bizarrely, like something out of a horror film. The dead had no need to protect their organs, so he moved their ribs on the spot.
*Crack!*
Razor-sharp bone swords sprouted from the arms of the dead.
He raised bony armor on various parts of their bodies and accelerated rigor mortis in areas that didn't require fluid movement, creating a makeshift ‘living armor.’
And these undead required no individual commands. For a ‘living shadow’ already dwelled in their throats, and indeed, in their hearts.
The Shadow Parasites. As hosts to these very parasites, the dead began to move.
“Hungry, hungry, hungry!”
An army of the dead. Undead craving prey, starving in their endless hunger.
Even if their opponents were comrades with whom they had just been sharing jokes, there were no exceptions.
Dale’s ‘weapon of mass destruction’ had annihilated the cavalry… and the shadow bullets that had rained down upon their bodies had transformed into parasites, now controlling the bodies of the dead.
‘How far can this go?’
Dale calmly calculated as he watched the scene unfold.
‘How much influence can I exert on the battle with these things?’
His capabilities when focusing his full power on magic from within the Black Armor Company’s dense formation. Furthermore, a command of necromancy on a scale comparable to that of a Black Magic Tower elder.
Dale knew it well. And the enemies here were nothing more than sacrifices for testing his abilities.
Lambs to the slaughter for his experiment. The darkness of the Black-Red Brigade inadvertently came to mind.
“…”
He shook his head as soon as the thought surfaced. This was a battlefield. Kill or be killed.
It was absurd to go to war without being prepared to die.
Thus, Dale’s undead began their relentless charge. Though they were no match for a ‘Death Knight,’ how many infantrymen would it take to deal with just one of them?
“Hold the line! Do not let the formation break!”
“Aaargh, it bit my neck! My neck! Aaargh!”
Watching the scene of the living and the dead clashing, Dale coldly assessed the tactical value of his undead.
‘One undead in heavy armor for seven infantrymen.’
‘One unarmored undead for three infantrymen.’
‘It’s still impossible to pierce armor with the bone swords.’
With not a hint of emotion, as if he were collecting experimental data. As a mage, he assessed and honed his capabilities, his mind already contemplating the next level of mastery.
It was then.
“I, I don’t want to die…”
“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”
“W-we can’t win! Everyone, run!”
“Get out of my way!”
Amidst the endlessly swarming undead, another plague began to spread. A plague much like the one Dale’s sniper rifle had once sown.
Fear. The fear of death spread like a pestilence. Faced with a mere hundred or so undead, the soldiers, despite having double that number, turned their backs in unison and began to flee.
“D-don’t run!”
“Maintain the line! Do not show your backs!”
“Deserters will be executed on the spot!”
Once a unit's morale drops and its discipline falters, only one thing awaits.
A rout.
The rearguard belatedly swung their swords to cut down the deserters, but the collapsing morale was irreversible. Even the mercenary companies that had vowed to put the Black Armor Company in its place were no exception.
Everyone was turning and fleeing, desperately trying to survive.
But for a unit to turn and move in unison requires more effort than one might think… and in the process, they expose their rears to the enemy.
The undead surged toward them as the unit’s center of gravity shifted, leaving them in a chaotic, overcrowded jumble.
It was no longer even a fight. It was a one-sided slaughter.
The Viper Mercenaries, the Golden Lion Mercenaries, the Brotherhood Mercenaries. Their names and reputations were rendered meaningless as they scrambled to escape.
‘Figures that those who felt their livelihoods were this threatened would be of this caliber.’
The two organizations that formed the twin pillars of the Empire’s mercenary world…
The silence of the ‘Landsknecht’ and the ‘Reisläufer’ was proof of that.
Symbols of trust, who would never retreat until the last man had fallen.
They, too, were surely watching the Black Armor Company’s actions closely, but what stood before Dale now could not even be called a threat.
“We’ve won.”
Dale murmured softly. But even at his words, no one dared to cheer just yet.
They could only swallow their astonishment and remain silent in the face of the overwhelming presence of this being who defied all standards.
Dale snapped his fingers again. The Shadow Parasites stopped their pursuit of the fleeing enemy soldiers.
They turned their heads to face this way.
Toward the walls of Hamburg, and toward the heavy infantry of the Black Armor Company.
Everyone held their breath, silent, as the undead stared mutely in their direction.
“I said, we’ve won.”
Dale muttered, as if it were someone else’s affair, and the undead knelt in unison. Only then did the fear in the air dissipate.
“We are victorious!”
A belated roar erupted.
“Victory for the Black Armor Company!”
“The Captain wiped out the enemy!”
“As expected of Lord Dale!”
A deafening cheer. The people within the city all raised their voices, praising Dale’s victory.
A mere one hundred heavy infantrymen had defeated an enemy force nearly twenty times their size. And they had done so through an extraordinary power capable of single-handedly controlling the tide of battle.
Victory was theirs.
It was an undeniable victory for Dale and the Black Armor Company, and it would further spread the infamy and cruelty of the ‘Black Prince’ through the words of the people.
* * *
Around that time, the Britannian Independence Army also began to reclaim the kingdom's old territories with unstoppable momentum.
Under the command of the nation’s standard-bearer, the ‘Holy Maiden Orelia,’ they overcame numerical disadvantages many times over and secured countless great victories.
The morale of the independence army fighting against the Empire was truly beyond words.
Shortly thereafter, the Holy Maiden Orelia enthroned ‘Charles VII,’ the legitimate heir to the Britannian royal family, as king. With the restoration of the monarchy, they began the fight to drive the Imperial forces out of the Britannian Isles.
Reclaiming their fortresses, cities, and fiefdoms from the Empire, the Kingdom of Britannia officially drew ‘the Kingdom’s territory’ on the map.
It was the first successful reclamation of territory since the unification of the Empire, something no one had dared to achieve.
News spread that the Empire, having swallowed a bitter defeat, was once again preparing an unprecedentedly large-scale dispatch of troops.
For they knew better than anyone the storm that would follow if a single independence movement succeeded.