Chapter 80
Chapter 80
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 80
Chapter Title: The Value of Sacrifice
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The kingdom was burning.
But the pillaging across the entire island of Britannia was no longer the work of 'a few deserters.'
There had never been any deserters. It was all a ruse by the Imperial Army to scatter the kingdom's forces.
Furthermore, the fleet carrying 20,000 imperial soldiers had never crossed the Strait of Calais to return to the continent.
While the kingdom reveled in a false peace, believing the Empire had withdrawn.
The fleet had turned, fanning out along the coast of Britannia to seize key landing points. Immediately after, a large-scale plunder of the entire island by the Imperial Army's main force began.
Such is war.
Kill or be killed, take or be taken. Kill before you are killed, or take before you are taken.
And around that time, a torrential downpour began to sweep across the entire Kingdom of Britannia.
***
Rain was falling.
"We die where we stand!"
In the pouring rain, the Black Armor Company roared at the approaching cavalry.
On both flanks, Imperial longbowmen had driven stakes to build barricades. The Empire's cavalry had also been ordered to dismount and fight alongside the Black Armor Company's heavy infantry.
An unbreakable formation.
The Imperial forces were arrayed on a hill, holding their ground in the downpour.
Between the two armies lay a deep mire of mud, a consequence of the days-long deluge.
Moments later, the Kingdom of Britannia's cavalry attempted an all-out charge.
They were the kingdom's mobile strike force, tasked with halting the Empire's pillaging and swiftly annihilating the enemy. As long as the imperial forces remained scattered and engaged in plunder, they should have been no match for the kingdom's cavalry, which held the advantage in unit type and mobility.
Or so it should have been.
"Wipe out the Imperial bastards!"
Just then, facing the charging cavalry from within the Black Armor Company's dense formation.
The Black Prince's black surcoat began to flutter. Black magic coalesced at his fingertips.
"Black Barrel, 'Gatling Type,' '5.56x45mm.'"
A living, writhing malice was unleashed.
He deliberately tempered its power.
Dale's objective was not to annihilate the cavalry. There were several reasons for this.
The enemy cavalry was too numerous to be wiped out by a single spell. Besides, sometimes, 'leaving them alive' could produce a greater effect than killing them.
But most importantly, he needed a victory won by maneuvering his army, not one achieved through his own prowess alone.
Death raged. A hail of shadow bullets scattered forth. Armor was pierced, skulls were shattered, and blood, brains, and entrails splattered everywhere.
"Wh-what in the world is that...!"
"It's him! That's the Black Prince's magic...!"
"We're going to die! We're all going to die!"
Fear spread through the cavalry like a plague.
"Retreat! Retreat! Turn your horses around!"
The cavalry leading the first charge broke formation and collapsed.
"Second line, charge! Cover the retreating cavalry!"
The rear cavalry, attempting a successive charge, became entangled with the retreating front line and plunged into the mire.
In the thick mud created by days of torrential rain, retreating soldiers clashed with advancing ones.
They collided in the sticky mud, shoving and tripping over one another.
The mud clung to the adhesive steel of their plate armor, pulling at their ankles like a swamp.
A swamp of death.
Trying to escape that swamp, the knights reached for their comrades like drowning men. They pulled each other down, and it was not uncommon for them to be crushed to death by the weight of their own armor. An enemy force several times their size was destroying itself.
It was the same tactic the Holy Maiden had once used to defeat an Imperial army nearly four times her size.
“...”
Dale watched impassively as the enemy self-destructed.
"What do you think?"
After observing for a while, he spoke. He addressed the 'prisoner' who stood silently beside him.
"Is this the ideal kingdom you envisioned, Lady Orelia?"
“...”
A swamp of death. In that very swamp, the kingdom's knights floundered.
The Holy Maiden Orelia was there as well.
Powerless before that hell, where the kingdom's knights were being slaughtered one-sidedly, she was bound by the white mages' restraining magic, unable to lift a finger. She bit her lip in helpless frustration.
It was not a simple restraint like handcuffs or chains. But at this moment, Orelia was nothing more than a 'helpless maiden.'
A mere serf's daughter, forced to watch the ruin of her homeland.
"The time has come."
Watching the enemy cavalry in disarray in the mud, Dale spoke.
"Kill them all."
As if to display the full extent of the Black Prince's cruelty and infamy.
"The commander's orders!"
"Kill them all!"
The Black Armor Company, which had been holding a dense formation, finally began to move. Five hundred heavy cavalrymen who existed solely for Dale.
Immediately after, Dale issued orders to the rest of the Imperial forces.
"Mount the knights in the first rank back on their warhorses and charge."
"Prepare for a rear attack by the enemy's detached force."
"Archers, hold your positions behind the barricades but cease firing."
Precise commands given for the right place at the right time.
The dismounted Imperial knights, who had repelled the enemy cavalry's charge alongside the Black Armor Company, mounted the warhorses waiting in the rear. They were preparing to begin an encirclement maneuver on Dale's command.
"Charge!"
It was not a victory won by overcoming overwhelming odds.
Even with a numerical disadvantage of several times their number, it would have made no difference. The enemy was anxious, while they had the luxury of exploiting the geographical advantage.
It was a battle they were bound to win.
Winning a battle that you are supposed to win is easy.
But at the same time, there is nothing more important than winning a battle you are supposed to win.
Like the Empire, which lost a force nearly four times larger to the Holy Maiden's independence army. Or like the fool who handed over the impregnable fortress of 'Belle Porte' for free and lost half his troops.
That was war, and Dale understood this fact more keenly than anyone. Defeat in war usually begins with 'failing to win the battles you are supposed to win.'
"You should have considered this, Lady Orelia."
Dale spoke calmly, as if to say this scene was the consequence of her blindness.
“...”
In the pouring rain, the Holy Maiden Orelia quietly bit her lip.
Following the orders of the Black Prince, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army, the imperial soldiers were slaughtering the kingdom's knights as they floundered in the mud.
***
The 20,000 imperial soldiers scattered across the island of Britannia, engaging in plunder.
Each time, the cavalry that pursued them in an attempt to repel them was defeated, and the entire kingdom was engulfed in the flames of pillage.
It was 'unavoidable.'
Soldiers must eat to fight. But the war had dragged on longer than necessary, and the Imperial Army's supply lines were stretched thin.
The vast amount of military supplies given up to free Phillip had also been a critical blow.
Therefore, there was only one easy way to solve the problem of supplies in war.
To take from others. Plunder.
***
Around that time, an Imperial messenger arrived in Reims, the capital of the Kingdom of Britannia.
He was there to deliver a letter from Dale, the supreme commander of the Imperial Army, to King Charles.
And in that letter, a single sentence was written.
── Si vis pacem, para bellum.
(If you want peace, prepare for war.)
Around that time.
The Imperial Army also ceased its indiscriminate looting throughout the kingdom's territory and began to converge on a single point to end the war.
The capital of the Kingdom of Britannia, which the Holy Maiden Orelia had taken without bloodshed from the Black Prince.
It was Reims.
***
Some time later. Burgundy, the Imperial territory on the island of Britannia.
The Holy Maiden Orelia was in a room within that very fortress.
Although the white mages' restraining magic suppressed her abilities, she was treated with a courtesy exceeding that given to a high-ranking noble prisoner.
"Soon, the Imperial Army will begin the siege to reclaim the royal capital, Reims."
It was there that Dale spoke.
"I do not need your paltry mercy."
The Holy Maiden Orelia replied to Dale's words.
That day, she had seen the Holy Sword Master reveal his vile desires for her.
The pig king.
To be reduced to a pig's broodmare for the rest of her life, or to take her own life before that. That was the fate that should have awaited the Holy Maiden.
"...Why are you protecting me?"
It was the Black Prince who had prevented that fate, and so the Holy Maiden asked.
"Surely you have something else you wish to gain through me."
“...”
"Do you intend to put me on trial for heresy to deny my revelations?"
"If I intended to deny your holiness, Lady Maiden."
Dale answered.
"There would be no surer way than to hand you over to that pig as his broodmare."
He was right.
"Then what do you want from me?"
"I simply."
Dale replied.
"Wish for you, Lady Orelia, to witness the end of this war."
The end of this war.
"The fate of one who claimed to be a puppet of the heavens."
“...”
"And I want you to think for yourself, Lady Orelia."
"About what?"
To Orelia's question, Dale answered.
"About the true 'path to saving the Kingdom of Britannia.'"
***
At that same time, in a room in the Burgundy fortress.
"That damn brat from Sachsen...!"
Count Brandenburg, the Holy Sword Master, roared in unspeakable fury.
He was not unaware that his avatar was the epitome of unspeakable vileness.
But it was also the undeniable essence of the Holy Sword Master's own philosophy, and in a way, the pig-headed beast could be called his true form.
That was why he had endured the humiliation to possess the 'Holy Maiden.' But he had failed.
Because of the binding oath carved into his heart.
The geas the Sachsen brat had made him swear that day, staking his heart and the responsibility for their defeat.
'One, you will obey my commands absolutely in all future battles and operations.'
'Two, you will entrust the treatment of any prisoners captured in this battle entirely to my discretion.'
Could he have known from the beginning that it would turn out this way? Was even he, the great Holy Sword Master, nothing more than a pawn dancing on the Black Prince's palm?
An unbearable humiliation tightened its grip on his heart.
Needless to say, the greatest complex of his life had also been laid bare for all to see.
Setting aside the fact that there wasn't a single knight in the Order of Saint Magdalena who didn't know his secret.
"I will never, ever let this go..."
Gazing at the hilt of the holy sword Durandal, the Holy Sword Master clenched his jaw.
***
Boom, boom, boom.
The sound of war drums echoed, announcing the start of the Siege of Reims.
Twenty thousand imperial soldiers surrounded the capital of the Kingdom of Britannia.
The 'Black Prince' of House Sachsen was there as well.
As the commander-in-chief of the large imperial force, he kept the captive Holy Maiden by his side.
"Let us give the people of Reims a chance."
Dale spoke.
"A chance...?"
"You, Lady Orelia, will persuade them to surrender."
“...”
"I swear on the name of Sachsen."
Dale continued.
"If they surrender obediently and give up Reims, there will be no more massacres or looting by the Imperial Army."
"Am I to believe your words?"
"You do not need to believe my words."
Dale replied as if it didn't matter.
"I simply want you, Lady Orelia, to think for yourself."
“...”
Silence fell.
"Give me the chance to persuade them."
After a moment of silence, Orelia nodded and, escorted by imperial soldiers, walked toward the capital of her homeland.
It was then.
"──She's the Empire's whore!"
"A witch! The traitor witch has appeared!"
"Get lost, you Imperial harlot!"
The taunts reached her.
They were not from the imperial soldiers. They were the voices of the people of the Kingdom of Britannia, the very people she was meant to protect.
"Why..."
At first, she couldn't comprehend the meaning of their words.
"When you were captured in Orléans, Lady Maiden."
Just then.
"I spread false information."
A voice came from behind her again.
"That the Holy Maiden Orelia, to save her own skin, betrayed the kingdom and colluded with the Empire."
“...”
"It didn't even take a few weeks for them to deny everything you had built."
Just a few weeks.
"In their eyes now, you are nothing but a traitor who sold out her homeland to the Empire."
For the entire Kingdom of Britannia to turn its back on its savior.
"Was it worth it?"
Dale asked again.
"Becoming a puppet of the heavens, sacrificing your all to fight for the kingdom."
“...”
"──Was it truly 'worth' it?"
Dale asked again. Orelia could not answer.