Dragoon! (3)
The thunderous roar of hooves. The piercing whistle of shells slicing through the air. Then the earth-shaking explosions.
BOOM! BOOM! KABOOM!
Knights charging from the front. Fireballs raining down from the rear. This place was hell itself.
That was the only thought running through the mind of a certain young nobleman as he faced this sudden ambush.
He had thrown in his lot with the 2nd Prince’s army, chasing nothing but the glory he would earn in the great war scheduled for spring. Yet the reality unfolding before his eyes was utterly merciless.
“T-this is impossible! Why is the 1st Prince here?!”
Beside him, the count who had hired him was screaming in desperation. The man howled in every direction, insisting this couldn’t be happening. It seemed even he couldn’t find a way out of this hopeless situation.
Whoosh— Thud!
While the young noble stood there in a daze, completely detached from reality, a soldier’s corpse flew past him trailing a streak of blood.
When he turned his head, he saw enemy knights lowering their lances and repositioning for another charge. At their feet lay only the cold corpses of his own allied knights.
Burned, torn, and trampled bodies. It was a scene that seemed to foreshadow the young noble’s own future. That sight snapped him back to reality in an instant.
“Ugh… Bleeegh!”
The nausea surged up so violently he couldn’t hold it back.
His body was no longer his own. It shook like a leaf in a gale. His fingertips turned deathly pale, as if the bitter cold of midwinter had settled deep in his bones.
His vision had narrowed to a pinpoint; he could barely see what was beside him. His body had curled in on itself from overwhelming terror and refused to move.
And then—
Shwooooong—!
At the ominous sound, he barely managed to lift his head. His entire field of vision was already filled with a blazing crimson fireball—
BOOM!
What had once been the young noble burned black in an instant. All that remained was a pitiful pile of charred ashes.
“Hiiiiiik!”
The count, who had witnessed the gruesome death right beside him, lost all strength in his legs and collapsed on the spot.
Sploosh…
In his terror, he had wet himself.
But unlike the count, the battlefield quickly fell into an eerie silence.
It was an unnatural, almost grotesque quiet. No matter where his trembling eyes looked, he saw only the corpses of his allies and the unscathed enemy forces.
“I-is no one there?! Someone—anyone—answer me! Please! Oswald! Otto!”
The count dragged his paralyzed legs across the dirt, crawling desperately. He screamed the names of his retainers until his voice grew hoarse, but no answer came.
He tried frantically to erase the reality from his mind, but only the cruel truth stood out clearly.
Not a single ally had survived. The enemy had suffered almost no losses and now completely dominated the field.
It was defeat. An overwhelming, one-sided defeat.
Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
The sound of approaching hoofbeats grew steadily louder. The count scraped at the dirt with all his strength, but it was futile.
“What a pathetic sight, Count.”
“Hiiik! 1st Prince!”
The count whipped his head around at the voice. There stood the 1st Prince.
Crunch!
“Gweeeh!”
The count let out a pig-like squeal as a boot suddenly slammed down on his back. In a voice thick with desperation, he begged.
“H-hiiiiiik! W-what do you want?! Anything I can give— AAAAAAAGH!”
Crack!
The pressure on his back increased, crushing him harder. The count’s screams grew weaker. Just as he began to suffocate—
Whoosh!
The 1st Prince lifted his foot from the count’s back.
“Haaahk! Haaahk!”
“Count, the right to make choices belongs only to the victor. It is not something you can offer me now.”
“I-I was wrong! Please, I beg for your mercy!”
“Mercy… mercy, you say…”
The 1st Prince’s laughter rang out.
It was the same loud, booming laugh as always, yet it carried not a trace of joy—only a bone-chilling coldness.
“How pathetic, Count. If you were going to beg for mercy, you should never have done this in the first place.”
“No! S-spare—!”
“Save your begging for the late king in the afterlife, you filthy traitor.”
Stab! Slice! Thud-thud-thud!
“Gurghk!”
A fierce spray of blood gushed from the heart that had been pierced through his back, soaking the ground. The stream gradually thinned, and so did the count’s final death rattle.
Thump.
With all life drained from him, the count was nothing more than a limp sack of meat. The 1st Prince pulled the blade from the corpse and flicked it through the air.
Splat!
The blood clinging to the blade scattered along its arc, spraying into the empty sky.
The droplets that vanished meaninglessly into the air looked utterly hollow, as if depicting the count’s own futile end.
Whirr— Crackle!
The 1st Prince detached the receiver from the Communication Magic Tool behind him, infused it with mana, and spoke.
“Sir Hammerstein, do you read me?”
“It’s already wrapped up nicely on my end. What about your side?”
“Good work.”
The 2nd Prince faction’s forces scattered across the eastern territories had no real central command. They were little more than the private armies of eastern lords. As a result, the 1st Prince had been picking them off one by one.
One week after the operation began, they had already crushed three minor lords’ armies. Just now, they had wiped out yet another minor lord’s forces along with the army of a high-ranking count.
I suppose this is as far as we can go.
The 1st Prince thought so as he surveyed the battlefield.
His own men were growing exhausted, and the number of wounded was steadily increasing. Two hundred knights and twenty Dragoon units. Even though they had suffered almost no casualties so far, continuing the operation any further would be pushing it.
“We’re pulling back. Sir Hammerstein, relay the order repeatedly to everyone around you. We are retreating to Gutbecken.”
After that, the receiver carried the sound of knights relaying the retreat order to one another.
Click.
The 1st Prince replaced the receiver. He then gave the same order to the knights around him.
At his command, the knights hurriedly began preparing to withdraw. Watching them, the 1st Prince fell into deep thought.
No matter how superhuman knights were, no matter how they could crush enemies with overwhelming physical force while mounted, they were still human. And because they fought in close quarters, minor injuries were common, and fatal wounds were far from rare.
It was common sense to counter knights with other knights. When equals clashed, losses were inevitable.
Yet in this operation, we didn’t suffer a single casualty. We struck the enemy’s main force—their knight corps—with overwhelming firepower first. Then our own knights followed up and crushed them easily.
Like a wave crashing over a sandcastle, the enemy’s vanguard collapsed in an instant. After that, it was little more than harvesting terrified foes.
The results were so overwhelmingly one-sided that the 1st Prince found himself pondering once again.
Should I really ask Baron Sternfeld for a favor?
The 1st Prince seriously considered requesting more Altar Cannons for his knights. But then the 3rd Prince’s deeply frowning face flashed through his mind, and he slowly shook his head.
I can already picture that cheapskate Richard blocking it. That eccentric, romance-less, penny-pinching housekeeper would never allow it.
Even he knew logically that it wasn’t feasible, so only deep regret remained.
“Your Highness! Withdrawal preparations are complete!”
“The Dragoon unit is also ready to withdraw!”
While the 1st Prince had been lost in thought, the preparations had finished. Everyone was now waiting for his command.
“Withdraw! Everyone head to Gutbecken!”
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
The moment the 1st Prince’s order was given, the knights and Dragoon units swiftly began pulling out of the area. He watched their backs for a moment, then spurred his own horse and accelerated after them.
“Hyaah!”
Whinny! Clatter-clatter-clatter!
In the end, only corpses remained on the battlefield—along with the crows and vultures that had come to feast on them.
BANG!
Count Wint-Hafen couldn’t contain his rage any longer. He slammed his fist down on the desk, shattering it to pieces.
Even that wasn’t enough to calm his fury. His roar shook the entire room.
“What the hell is this?!”
“W-we’re sorry, my lord!”
“Does this look like something that can be fixed with a simple apology?! Five thousand men lost in just one week! Five thousand! And the 1st Prince himself led the attack! Yet you’re telling me we couldn’t do a single thing to stop it?! Does that make any sense to you?!”
Shing!
Still not satisfied, Count Wint-Hafen drew the sword he kept at his side.
The atmosphere in the room froze solid in an instant.
In contrast to the count’s volcanic rage, the rest of the room turned to ice. The people standing there looked like corpses frozen solid in the middle of winter, too afraid to even blink in case they became the next target.
If they displeased him now, it wouldn’t be a metaphor—they would literally become corpses.
“So you’re not even going to offer an excuse anymore?”
Whirr— Clang!
A blue aura instantly erupted from the count’s blade. Despite his advanced age, the pure, flawless mana flowed smoothly across the sword’s surface without the slightest tremor.
Everyone in the room turned pale and immediately began begging for their lives.
“P-please spare us! At least our lives—!”
“It’s our fault! Please, we beg for mercy!”
“Hkk— Urk!”
Some couldn’t even endure the threat of death. Their eyes rolled back as they teetered on the edge of fainting.
“Mercy, huh…”
Ssssh. Shing!
After a moment, Count Wint-Hafen sheathed his sword to cool his anger. He addressed the people in the room.
“Then I shall tell you the price of my mercy. Half your assets.”
“Pardon?”
“Did you not hear me? I said half your assets. Liquidate your properties and bring me the money within one week. I will use it to commission the Blue Tower and White Tower.”
“B-but that’s—!”
Swoosh! Roll…
The sword was drawn and swung in the blink of an eye. A noble’s head tumbled through the air and bounced across the floor.
Spluuuursh! Gush! Gush!
Blood poured from the severed neck, spraying in every direction and dyeing the room crimson. It splattered across Count Wint-Hafen and the other nobles nearby.
“A-aaaaaagh!”
“Did my mercy seem cheap to you? Well? Are any of you going to say you won’t pay?”
“N-no, my lord! We will definitely pay!”
Clatter-clatter! Creak! Slam!
The nobles answered instantly and fled the room in a panic. Left alone, Count Wint-Hafen clenched his teeth.
Revenge. I will make those who humiliated me pay with the most miserable revenge imaginable!
Grind.
He would destroy them without fail. The 1st Prince and Alvaro Sternfeld.