The East Stirs
Firepower!
It was something you could never have too much of — the more of it you possessed, the better, no exceptions. In that respect, it was exactly like money.
As a man from the peninsula who would sell his own soul for artillery and raw destructive power, I was someone who placed absolute, unconditional faith in firepower.
If the Gustav had been built for romance, for symbolism, for that single overwhelming punch of one catastrophic shell, then everything we were about to produce from here on out would be instruments of pure efficiency — tools for seizing territory, for delivering burst damage so absolute that knowing it was coming still wouldn't save you, for opening a technological gap no amount of Aura or magic could close.
Among the various weapons under development toward that end, the first to reach completion was this multiple rocket launcher.
Tanks were a concept that simply did not exist in this world, so building one was taking time. But a vehicle capable of carrying a multiple rocket launcher was only a slightly larger machine with a different purpose — and vehicles of some kind already existed here. Development moved fast.
I only had to mumble the basic idea and a crude outline of the principles, and the dwarves — born engineers, a race of craftsmen — understood me perfectly and knocked the whole thing out. It was almost unfair how convenient they were.
One thing I had learned fighting the Southern army last time was this: as overwhelming as the miniguns' firepower had been, there would be battlefields where that alone would not be enough to win.
For one thing, a minigun's effective range topped out at about a kilometer.
That was more than enough for this era — but what if some absurdly powerful mage showed up and started lobbing spells from farther out than that?
Or what if the terrain was so choked with rocks, trees, and buildings that the miniguns alone couldn't push an advance, leaving us locked in a stalemate?
And I couldn't just fire the Gustav every time that happened. For the safety of the gun itself, it could only engage targets dozens of kilometers away at minimum, and the setup took forever. Worse, if the enemy deliberately cut the rails to keep the Gustav from deploying, I couldn't exactly order the dwarves to rebuild the track every single time.
Which meant I needed more weapons — weapons that could handle a wider range of situations.
And the Cheonmu was going to fill one of those roles perfectly.
From now on, rocks, forests, and trees would mean absolutely nothing in front of this thing.
"Well then — to the successful completion of yet another project of ours! Cheers!"
"Kahahaha! Cheers, cheers!"
"On a day this good, we've got to drink till our noses are crooked!"
The dwarves and I drank through the night, certain of the victories the Cheonmu would bring us in the days ahead.
Several days after Eleanor had left to mediate the Southern crisis, the imperial court received her report — and erupted all over again.
"What in the world is this supposed to mean?! That Isaac is taking excellent care of her, that she likes the situation so much she's decided to settle down in the South entirely?! Eleanor… is Eleanor throwing my heart away?!"
The one who lost his mind the hardest was the Emperor.
He had already prepared everything — the moment Eleanor finished mediating the Southern affair and returned, he intended to make her his wife before any other suitors could close in. He had even furnished the bridal chambers. And now, out of nowhere, she had declared she would not be coming back.
It felt like the woman he meant to take as his wife had simply ghosted him. Naturally, the Emperor's fury turned on the Crown Prince and the officials who had all spoken with one voice to send Eleanor south in the first place.
"How exactly do you intend to resolve this disaster?! You lot desperately persuaded me that Eleanor had to go as the mediating envoy, I granted your petition — and this is what comes of it! Find a way to bring Eleanor back to the palace at once! And of those who jointly submitted that memorial, anyone who fails to produce a solution will not escape censure!"
The Crown Prince and the officials were equally bitter about the whole mess.
They had pushed to send Eleanor out precisely because leaving her in the palace meant the Emperor would snatch her up for certain — they had only wanted her out of reach for a while. And now Isaac, the same man who never opened his mouth without demanding she be cast out, looked set to claim her for himself.
Damn it. That bastard Isaac… Was all that harping on Eleanor just a scheme so he could take her himself? And Eleanor — Eleanor! How does she fall for a man like that in a matter of days…
Grinding his teeth, the Crown Prince moved quickly to calm the Emperor.
"Your Majesty, you know better than anyone how clever and kind-hearted Eleanor is. A woman like that would never stay simply because Isaac sweet-talked her. This letter was almost certainly written under Isaac's coercion."
It happened to be the perfect truth — but the Crown Prince had only said whatever came to mind to redirect the Emperor's rage onto Isaac, and he did not actually believe his own words.
The officials immediately fell in behind him.
"His Highness the Crown Prince speaks wisely! We can hardly claim Isaac bribed Eleanor with wealth — she is hardly the sort of person to be swayed by a handful of riches. Isaac must have used some method to separate her from the Rose Knights, then forced her to write this under physical threat!"
The Emperor, who absolutely refused to believe Eleanor had betrayed him, swallowed the Crown Prince and officials' completely unexamined whitewashing without a second thought and clenched his fists.
"That dog Isaac…!!! I will lead the army myself and charge him with treason—!"
"But Your Majesty, even if that is what happened, the letter is still in Eleanor's own hand, and on its face it reads as though she remained of her own free will. A cunning creature like Isaac could twist a direct imperial march into propaganda and paint Your Majesty as a tyrant."
"What does a pretext matter right now?! My Eleanor is trapped there, waiting desperately for me!"
At the words my Eleanor, the Crown Prince and every official flinched.
They needed to rescue Eleanor — and they also needed to stop her from becoming the Emperor's wife. A thoroughly contradictory position.
Fortunately, someone appeared of his own accord to offer them a way out.
A single letter that arrived at the palace soothed the Emperor, the Crown Prince, and the officials all at once.
Your Imperial Majesty, this is Archduke Edmund of the East. From Lord Leon of the South, who stopped here on official business, I have received news of the most appalling kind. That Isaac has seized the South without authorization and detained Lady Eleanor — I could scarcely believe my own ears. Lady Eleanor left word that she had confirmed how Isaac managed to occupy the South: the barbarians, she said, were equipped with a most peculiar weapon she had never seen before in her life. It is said to have punched clean through the Rose Knights' commander's mithril armor in a single shot…
Reading that far, the court broke into gasps of dismay.
Mithril armor pierced in a single shot? If barbarians with no Aura could do something like that, then Isaac had truly created something monstrous.
With yet another reason to eliminate him now firmly in mind, they read on.
…Lady Eleanor said she no longer had the face to ask the imperial court for help again. A direct confrontation with them being too dangerous, she has requested aid from our East, which possesses a natural fortress of unmatched strength. As Your Majesty well knows, between our East and the South lies a vast expanse of solid rock, and beyond it the Great Rainforest. That region has remained almost untouched by human hands and has been jointly administered by East and South, so we are intimately familiar with its geography. Isaac is not.
The Emperor slapped his knee.
"Of course! Between the East and the South lies that enormous Great Rainforest! The Western barbarians may be relatively more accustomed to such environments than we humans are, but they will never match the Eastern army that has managed those lands every single day! The Archduke of the East has had a splendid idea!"
"Whatever Isaac has built, he will not be able to do much about that dense Great Rainforest. Even renowned Sword Masters and high-ranking mages struggle to bring their full power to bear in a place like that."
"Heat, humidity, disease, insects, swamps, mud, supply problems — the Great Rainforest is overflowing with every factor that can hobble an army. And even if they somehow force their way through it, the road from South to East is blocked by the great Rock Fortress. Taking that head-on is impossible."
The Eastern army's raw combat strength fell short of the North with its Slayers or the South with its Iron Vanguard — but they possessed the ultimate weapon no human could overcome: nature itself.
It was an absolute consensus that fighting the Eastern army on its home ground — the Great Rainforest and the Rock Fortress — would leave even the Slayers, the Iron Vanguard, or the Rose Knights with no hope of avoiding annihilation. Even the proud members of those units themselves admitted as much.
In the Great Rainforest, the Eastern army was invincible.
Remembering that fact, the Emperor beamed and shifted restlessly in his seat.
"The Archduke of the East's loyalty is beyond compare! If the center moves openly, there is no telling what kind of public campaign that dog Isaac will spin from it — so the Chancellor will make secret contact with the Archduke and prepare to supply him with materiel, equipment, and manpower if needed! Issue the order: the Archduke of the East is to use the Great Rainforest as his base, strike at Isaac, and cut that wretch's standing out from under him!"
Still ignorant of what Isaac had actually created, the central court never doubted for a moment that an Eastern army operating from the Great Rainforest would drive Isaac out of the South and reclaim Eleanor.