War of Words
I should say this now, though it comes late: my strategy had several holes in it.
First, there was no way to counter the superior knight forces of the north, represented by the Border Counts and the Royal Knight Order.
Second, the ten thousand elite soldiers who formed the pillar of our army—and my personal power base—were all borrowed from Italy, so I had to husband them as carefully as possible.
And third, the crushing disadvantage in pitched battle that arose when the first two weaknesses were stacked together.
That was exactly why I had never been able to feel certain of victory. I had secured a strategic edge by dangling the secession of southern France as bait, but with our knight forces inferior, I simply could not see a path to tactical superiority.
Inducing an offensive from the royalists was no answer. The Duke of Orléans was no idiot. No matter how pressed he was, he would never just ram his head into well-maintained walls for no reason.
On top of that, this world actually possessed mana—a surreal energy source that existed in reality and was accepted as common sense. To devise any proper tactics, I would first need a deep understanding of mana, and of course that lay far beyond my abilities. How could someone dragged here from a place where supernatural phenomena were treated as entertainment possibly analyze the combat of human weapons who wielded surreal power?
Asty herself had just been an ordinary country kid with no connection whatsoever to things like mana. Even the divine power I had obtained by literally having a blade driven through my neck was rotting unused for lack of talent. Forcing mana I could not even wield into the mix would only shatter the entire equation.
So my plans had been thoroughly concentrated on one thing alone: drawing the royalists out and seizing strategic advantage. I did not know tactics anyway. If some complete amateur who did not even understand how knights actually fought started meddling in unit deployment and command at every turn, it would only get people killed. I decided to set the general direction and leave the practical work to the experts.
"Who dares stand in the way of His Majesty the King's army!"
But now, with the Finance Officer having joined us and supplying far more varied information, I was able to attempt a modest gamble for our tactical advantage. Something like a mental attack. Or a mental attack. Or a mental attack.
"His Majesty the King's army, you say? How amusing."
A plain. A place not far from Clermont-Ferrand Fortress. Having come out to greet the Duke of Orléans with neither army nor knights—only Rebecca at my side—I faced the tens of thousands of troops he led and arranged my face into the sternest expression I could manage. Then, in the most serious voice I could wring out of myself, I answered him.
"Since when, exactly, has a worldly sovereign been permitted to defy His will?"
Of course I had not forgotten to ask Rebecca to set up a halo effect for me. With a soft flame glowing at my back, I sternly rebuked the Duke of Orléans and his lackeys, and a subtle unrest began to ripple through their ranks.
This is the dignity of a Saintess chosen directly by Vesta… or so I would have liked to claim, but no matter how I looked at it they just seemed startled by the halo, which was a little disappointing. Well, it was not as if I had brought a megaphone. It would have been stranger still if tens of thousands of people had all understood every word I said. The fact that even this halo was borrowed from Rebecca only made me feel more pathetic, yet coldly considered, the mere fact that all these people were stirring at my appearance was itself proof that things were proceeding according to plan.
"And for that utterly pathetic creature who has plunged the people of this land into misery through unfathomable incompetence and corruption to call himself king…"
In that case there was nothing to do but press forward. I defined the entire royalist faction as lackeys of a tyrant, packing the words with genuine rage. Revealing my disappointment in the king with a light sigh was a free bonus. Acting was hardly my specialty, but this time I did not even need to display my wretched acting skills. My hatred for Claude V—who had driven everything to this point with his bottomless incompetence—was pure, one-hundred-percent genuine. All I had to do was express that hatred in a slightly different register suited to the moment.
"Have you lost your minds? Not content with offering the sword that should be dedicated to Heaven to that vile creature, you have been blinded by the sweet dregs of power that tyrant doles out and now dare to block the path of a saint!"
For the record, the "saint" here was not me. It meant Count Montpellier. The thought of paving a silk road to the throne for that greedy serial killer made my insides churn so violently I felt my organs twisting, but if I gilded my own face with my own mouth my hands and feet would cringe so hard I would simply vanish. What else was I supposed to do? Dump every embarrassing role on that old man and run my mouth to my heart's content.
"Repent! How can you wear human skin and commit such wretched acts? The Flame of Benevolence never tolerates evil. If you do not repent, the karmic fires of heaven will devour you!"
The real point began here. Drawing on the faith big data I had accumulated hanging around religious people back on twenty-first-century Earth, I poured out fierce condemnation—repentance, karmic fire, endless divine-punishment riffs, the works. I did not know our order's doctrine all that well, but this still scored two hundred out of a hundred. Especially high marks for crafting sentences that completely avoided inflammatory words like heretic or heathen.
Why leave those two words out when I was supposed to be a Saintess? Because our order was famous for having no mercy for heretics or heathens. Apostasy meant death, or something of the sort. In a place where the objects of faith often actually existed, being strict about apostasy was not strange in the least. Unfortunately, Vesta was closer to a racial deity who protected humanity. Naturally the authority the old Vesta Order had once wielded stood on a completely different level from middling minor orders, and combined with the characteristic of wielding fire it had led to the remarkable conclusion that apostates got burned at the stake. So from now on I must never use inflammatory words like heretic or heathen. If I rashly condemned them as apostates they would come out ready to fight until one side was completely dead. The best approach was to keep harping on their insufficient justification like this and preach at them to reflect.
"What the hell…"
Of course soft preaching like this would not easily break or convert the enemy army, but I had never expected that much anyway. Mind control was advanced technique. To use that I would need to fuse with Dark Asty and evolve into the Dark Consul or something. If wagging my tongue once on the battlefield could flip the entire situation, I would never have needed to worry about tactical advantages in the first place. Just enough to make their knights hesitate a little before swinging their swords. That was enough for now.
"We should head back soon, Saintess. We are already at a dangerously close distance."
I was watching their reactions with sharp eyes, wondering whether any of this was landing, when Rebecca—who had been silently maintaining the halo—carefully tugged at my sleeve. In an earnest voice I had never heard from her before, she pleaded that it was too dangerous and we needed to go back now.
"…Yes. This should be enough for now."
She was not wrong, so I decided to follow obediently. They numbered in the tens of thousands; we were two people. And I was a non-combatant who could barely manage my own body, so in reality Rebecca had been facing the entire suppression force alone. No matter how skilled she was in combat, she could not handle this many by herself, and even if we fled, success would be hard to guarantee with a deadweight like me in tow. This had been an adventure based on the baseless hope that they would not simply try to kill me outright, so withdrawing at this point was also good for my personal safety.
Am I being too timid after coming all this way? There would be plenty more chances later to lower the royalists' morale. Continuing the sermon here did not seem likely to yield any meaningful results, so leaving a short, intense impression and departing was the best option in every way.
"Let's head back."
So it was time to return. There would be many more occasions to denounce their cause, but this would probably be the last time I struck with nothing but my tongue in a situation where no blood had been spilled. That fact was so absurd and so resentful that I let out a bitter smile and sighed as if the ground itself would cave in.
Even if the world I live in changes and the name I use is different, I myself never change. I fled from life, sick of the stench of blood, only to jump right back into a pool of blood of my own free will. When will the curse our senior left behind finally release me?
"As soon as possible."
Once I got back I needed to review the war plans once more. The suppression force's march route curved along the main road, so if I hurried back I should be able to secure enough time to run a simulation in my head at least once. Then maybe a way to seize victory with fewer sacrifices would come to mind.
…But why are those guys following us?
What, do they want an autograph or something?