Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Radical or Unconventional (1)
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For a moment, I was bewildered.
“Oh?”
Then I realized something new.
My short, stubby body was gone.
I knew it the moment I looked down.
This was my body.
Past, or future.
My original body, forged through countless cycles of life and death.
I clenched my fist.
*Crack.*
It overflowed with power.
A far cry from the frail body of a child.
“Fortunately, my legs are fine.”
Even the disability that had plagued me my entire past life was gone.
I was in perfect condition.
*Swoosh.*
An arrow shot from below the fortress wall grazed my cheek.
“Commander! Watch out—!”
The guardsman beside me screamed.
That wasn’t all.
“Agh! My eyes!”
“Gahhh!”
Screams echoed from all around.
“Kill them all! Don’t let a single one up!”
“Fire! Don’t stop firing!”
The furious shouts were deafening.
It was the same on top of the walls and below.
Death filled the world.
And yet, strangely…
My face grew hot.
Heat surged from deep within me.
“Hoo.”
I let out a hot breath.
Then I took a deep breath.
Steel, blood, and sweat. And the acrid stench of sulfur.
The scent of the battlefield—so familiar I’d almost missed it—filled my lungs.
A wave of dizziness washed over me for some reason.
Goosebumps prickled my skin.
*Stagger.*
“Commander…!”
A Burgundian soldier beside me caught me.
“Sir, what’s wrong…?”
But the soldier’s face, now close to mine, was pale.
I reflexively touched the corner of my mouth.
My lips were curled upward.
I must have been smiling.
* * *
For some time after the mock battle began, the cadets were in a daze.
Completely overwhelmed by their first taste of a real battlefield, they forgot that none of it was real.
“Gyaaaaaaaah!”
A soldier, doused in boiling oil from the ramparts, ran about screaming.
“H-Help me…”
A soldier who fell from a ladder wailed with a broken leg before being trampled by his own comrades.
Mangled corpses, pierced by arrows and slashed by blades, littered the ground.
“*Retch!*”
At the horrific sight, several cadets bent over and vomited.
“Everyone, get a grip! This is just a mock battle!”
At that moment, Cadet 32, Bern of House Vigete, stepped forward.
“The outcome of this battle is already set! There's no reason to falter!”
As expected of a direct heir of House Vigete, one of the top Eight Families, he quickly rallied the cadets.
The first thing he did was halt the assault and take stock of their forces.
“Ninety-eight cadets, and one centuria each.”
“It feels real, but you can tell it’s not in details like this. The numbers would never be this neat in a real battle. The flow of time feels a bit fast, too.”
Hummel Hildegard, Cadet 45, replied nonchalantly to Bern Vigete's comment.
“…Wait, why ninety-eight? One is missing.”
Just then, Cadet 88, Amelia, who had been watching, voiced her question.
“Number 99, Number 99 is missing.”
“As they say, an empty wagon makes the most noise. Looks like he was declared dead the moment it began. How foolish.”
Bern Vigete smirked at her words.
“Probably got hit by a stray arrow while crying his eyes out.”
“Well, we know who's getting the lowest score in this mock battle.”
The cadets from prestigious houses, pleased that the eyesore Cadet 99 had been eliminated so early, snickered amongst themselves.
Watching them, Amelia pursed her lips a few times before backing away.
“Forget the dead. We just need to do what we have to do.”
On the spot, Bern Vigete formed a command staff centered on the highborn cadets and organized the units.
“They're keeping it all to themselves.”
Cadet 39, Angelo Schmitz, and a few cadets from minor houses voiced their discontent, but they didn't openly object, as a command structure was undeniably necessary.
Once a rough chain of command was established, things moved quickly.
“In the actual history, the Burgundian fortress only held for five days. This time will be no different.”
At Bern Vigete's words, the cadets nodded.
In truth, most sieges were more or less the same.
The attackers would throw bodies at the walls to find a weak point, and the defenders would hold on for dear life.
This give-and-take would continue until one side suffered unbearable losses in either supplies or manpower and was forced to retreat.
The addition of siege weapons might make things more spectacular, but it was rare for a siege to be anything other than a battle of attrition.
In such cases, victory was usually determined by who had more resources.
And in this battle, the victor was the Imperial army.
It was a fact that all the cadets knew.
There was no need to be well-versed in history.
The Empire's final battle against its archrival, the Kingdom of Burgundy, was far too famous.
After a decisive victory in a massive field battle, the Imperial army had taken the fortress in a swift assault, giving the enemy no time to prepare their defenses.
There were no variables.
Just as in the original history, the fortress was destined to fall after a few days of token resistance.
The question wasn't *how* to take the fortress, but who would claim the most glory.
The cadets' eyes shone as they exchanged glances.
Though no one said it aloud, their ambitious faces showed their determination to earn the greatest honors in this mock battle.
No one doubted victory.
To them, the fortress was nothing more than a sandcastle, ready to crumble at the slightest breeze.
That was what they all thought, what they all believed.
They were wrong.
The fortress didn't budge.
“Imperial 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 12th Centuriae, wiped out!”
“So far, over 23 centuriae have been broken or wiped out! We need to regroup urgently!”
Instead, it was their own forces, thrown into the siege, that were being slaughtered.
“Over twenty of our people have already been declared killed in action.”
“In the original history, how did they take that fortress in just a few days?”
A few cadets were shaken, but they were a small minority.
Most considered it an unavoidable loss, part of the process of grinding down the defenders' forces and wearing them out.
To them, this mock battle was nothing more than a competition with a predetermined outcome.
Bern Vigete thought so too.
“A night raid!”
“The food depot is on fire!”
He only began to sense that something was wrong when the supply depot went up in flames, set ablaze by enemy soldiers who had slipped silently out of the fortress gates.
“The cadets in charge of defending the depot…?”
“Oh, them? They figured they wouldn't see any action just guarding the depot, so they snuck into yesterday's assault and were all declared dead.”
The angry question was met with a casual reply.
“Attacking at night. Are they insane? Savages with no sense of chivalry.”
“Even barbarians should know basic tactics. Night combat is taboo; it's too hard to tell friend from foe. That's fundamental.”
The cadets, showing no sense of crisis, continued to badmouth the enemy.
“What's the big deal? Worried about the food? We can just launch an all-out assault tomorrow and end this.”
“Tomorrow will be the fifth day. It's playing out just like the history books.”
Bern Vigete felt a wave of dizziness at the baseless optimism of the very people he'd chosen for his command staff.
Still, the feeling was nothing more than a vague unease.
“All forces, forward.”
He ordered an all-out assault the next day.
*Dum, dum, dum.*
The sight of thousands of troops marching to the beat of war drums was magnificent.
So much so that the anxiety he’d felt the day before vanished as if it had never been there.
He was certain.
That fortress would fall today.
It didn't take long for his certainty to be shattered.
A man with ashen hair appeared on the fortress wall.
A scar crossing his cheek and forehead was clearly visible even from a distance.
The commander-in-chief of Burgundy and the target of this mock battle.
The man suddenly pulled out a large drum.
*Dum.*
And then he began to beat the drum with all his might.
*Dum-dum-dum-dum. Dum.*
A disruptive rhythm that expertly cut into the beat of their own drums.
“Huh?”
Bern Vigete, who was watching the scene with narrowed eyes, drew a sharp breath.
The formation of the infantry, which had been marching in step to the drumbeat, instantly fell into disarray.
“W-Wait… we need to reform the ranks…!”
Just as he belatedly realized the problem and tried to recall his troops.
*Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum.*
The Burgundian commander suddenly began to beat the drum rapidly.
*Rat-a-tat-tat.*
The wavering lines of their infantry surged, then suddenly broke into a run.
“Out of the way! Don't block our men, move it!”
The already scattered formations and spacing of the infantry devolved into chaos.
*Thwip-thwip-thwip.*
To make matters worse, a volley of arrows poured down from the fortress.
“Why did you come this way! You're supposed to be at that section of the wall!”
“Where are the ladders! Are you going to bring them after we're all dead!”
In an instant, the formations tangled, leading to the tragic farce of allies shoving and tripping over one another.
A few cadets ran here and there, trying to somehow manage the chaos, but it was an impossible task for rookie commanders with no real combat experience.
“Ah…”
Watching the scene, Bern Vigete realized the source of the vague anxiety he had been feeling.
All the cadets here, regardless of their background, had a basic knowledge of tactics.
But applying that learned theory was another matter entirely.
In the undisciplined mass of soldiers charging blindly toward the wall, any semblance of a command structure had vanished.
In contrast, the Burgundian forces were perfectly coordinated.
Not a single arrow was wasted.
Under the precisely aimed volleys, a panicked Imperial centuria crashed into an adjacent one that had just managed to reform its ranks.
It was like being herded.
Like an experienced dog herding a flock of sheep.
And all of it was being conducted according to the hand signals of the ashen-haired man standing on the wall.
Bern Vigete bit his lip.
“Even now…!”
He snatched the signal flag from the soldier holding it.
“Everyone, fall back!”
He shouted at the top of his lungs and waved the flag.
The soldier next to him belatedly beat the drum, signaling a retreat.
But none of it reached their allies.
“It's not over yet.”
Just then, a cadet beside him stepped forward and spoke.
It was Amelia, who had been in charge of the cavalry—largely useless in a siege—and had been waiting in the camp the whole time.
“I'll try to get this under control. You look for a chance to turn the tables.”
Mounted on a pure white warhorse, she raised her hand.
“Charge!”
At her signal, the cavalry began to gallop toward the battlefield in unison.
* * *
Watching the cavalry mobilize in the distance, I gave a triumphant smile.
Committing their reserves at this stage meant they were running out of options.
I had suspected this chaotic assault might be a feint for something else, but now I had nothing to fear.
“Well then. Shall we get moving?”
This mock battle, so similar yet so different from a real one, had been quite amusing. But all games must come to an end.
It was time to end this.
Oh right, there was something I had to do first.
“Stop cowering in the castle like a coward and come out and fight!”
One of the cadets who’d somehow made it to the base of the wall had been screaming at the top of his lungs for some time now.
“If you have any honor… Gack!”
I put an arrow right between his eyes.
The face of the guy who fell over with a bizarre scream looked strangely familiar.
“Ah, it was that brat, Cadet 23.”
After ushering that obnoxious brat off the stage, I immediately descended the wall.
I mounted the horse I had kept on standby.
“Open the gate!”
The heavy fortress gates swung wide open.