A Prince Untested by War
Ever since firearms—specifically rifles and guns light enough for individual soldiers to carry and shoot—first emerged, the landscape of warfare had undergone a rapid, seismic transformation.
There was no disputing the sheer might of gunpowder: even an unawakened peasant without an ounce of trained mana could slaughter a demonic beast whose hide turned steel, and fortified walls could be brought tumbling down without a single spellcaster. Gunpowder had undoubtedly supplanted vast swathes of what magic once governed. Yet it had never truly usurped its throne. Mana, after all, was merely another source of energy, and energy adapts to the changing tides of history according to the will of those who wield it.
Boom!
Mortars hastily deployed by the besiegers launched into the sky, their shells arcing along steep trajectories before plunging directly toward the suppression force below. Roughly twenty shells rained down at once.
"Our forces seem to have taken their positions," Adelheid murmured, still surveying the battlefield from atop the ramparts. "Time to make my move."
As if leaping to her death, she threw herself off the ramparts. For a fleeting instant, she let the rushing wind press against her, then planted a hand against the sheer stone wall and kicked off with explosive force. The masonry did not shatter beneath her weight, despite the heavy aura cloaking her frame. A body forged from the moment she took her first steps, honed through over a decade of blood and mud on the front lines, brooked no such clumsy waste of power. She expended not an ounce more than necessary—just enough propulsion to intercept the salvo before it dipped too low. Exactly as calculated, the princess intercepted the cluster of shells suspended in midair.
"Hup!"
Twisting in midair, she channeled an extra burst of aura into her boots and brought her heel down upon one of the incoming shells.
Bang!
The aura-augmented impact delivered just enough shock to trigger the fuse, detonating the shell beneath her sole. Using the explosion as a springboard to launch herself higher, Adelheid swept the remaining ordnance into her field of view, committing their coordinates to memory while plotting the optimal trajectory in an instant.
Clack.
In such tight formations, even a single stray shell would claim dozens of lives. Yet that crushing pressure did nothing to rattle her composure. It was simple math: if she did not miss a single one, no one would die. While hardly as effortless as eating cake with a fork, it was well within her capabilities.
Click-clack.
From a leather holster slung behind the waist of her full plate armor, she drew a firearm. It resembled neither a standard rifle nor a conventional pistol. At a glance, it had the profile of a shotgun, yet its barrel was stubby and its bore more than double the usual caliber. A wider bore meant massive rounds. Though the firepower was devastating, the recoil was so monstrous that, for an ordinary soldier concerned with accuracy or keeping their shoulders intact, it would be deemed an unusable defect. But for a master of aura like Adelheid, recoil was never a flaw—it was a feature.
Working the action beneath the barrel to chamber a round, Adelheid took aim at the furthest shell and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
With a thunderous crash that sounded more like a cannon strike than gunfire, another shell shattered in midair.
"That's two."
Riding the brutal recoil to propel herself backward, she ejected the spent casing, chambered the next round, and calmly blasted the neighboring shell to pieces.
"Three."
"Four."
"Five."
The cylinder held only six rounds. Her final shot was aimed not at an incoming shell, but into empty air.
Boom!
Though the bullet whistled harmlessly into the sky, the staggering recoil drove Adelheid's body downward, dropping her beneath the remaining cluster of shells in an eyeblink. That had been her plan all along.
"Lined up rather neatly," she muttered. "Not bad for an undisciplined rabble."
Having expended her ammunition, the princess holstered the weapon without hesitation—not because she was out of bullets, but because she no longer needed a firearm. In its place, she drew a longsword. True to a woman who identified far more with the soldier than the imperial royal, the blade bore zero ornate flourishes, forged with purely utilitarian simplicity.
Gripping the hilt in her right hand, Adelheid took a brief breath, concentrating her aura into her arm as she visualized her intent. In her mind's eye rose the wolf, the imperial crest. Specifically, the old folklore of the Fron Empire: the legend of the twin wolves, one that swallowed the sun to summon the night, and the other that devoured the moon to bring forth the day.
Will what I do now bring a brilliant dawn to my great motherland, or will it plunge her into the pitch-black night?
A flicker of doubt crossed her thoughts, but regardless of what her mind debated, her body—honed to mechanical precision—swung the sword. The aura tearing free from the edge paused for the barest fraction of an instant before hurtling faster than a bullet as the swing completed, swelling in size to manifest her inner image. Like a celestial wolf snapping its jaws toward the heavens, Adelheid's aura slash swallowed more than ten shells in a single sweep, detonating them all at once.
"Hati."
Pleased with the technique she had improvised on the spot, she gave it a name as she touched down upon the front line.
"General, please tell me that was our side."
Someone on the front line had fired mortar shells and someone had shot them out of the sky—a few midair explosions I could shrug off. But seeing an obscene mass of aura surge from below, taking the shape of a colossal wolf and devouring the sky, was a little... well, honestly, pretty damn terrifying.
"Judging by the wolf shape, only imperial royalty could manifest such aura," General Lucius replied. "And regrettably, there is only one royal on this battlefield."
"Why the hell are you regretting that she's on our side?!"
"Tsk. If I gave up an arm... could I weather that blow and counterattack, I wonder?"
Even while rampaging through the middle of the enemy camp, Lucius saw that devastating strike from Adelheid and immediately began calculating how to duel it, his battle lust blazing. Depending on who was watching, they might have lauded him as the very paragon of Remus.
Not me.
"One of these days, you're going to die surrounded by enemies on some godforsaken battlefield," I groaned.
"Look at you, Prince, becoming a true soldier! Handing out such heart-warming blessings."
"You maniac... Urgh..."
Just as planned in the briefing, we had infiltrated the enemy's rear lines to cause deliberate havoc. Whenever we stumbled upon what looked like a supply depot, we tossed a few grenades or incendiaries to set it ablaze, much to their absolute horror. Being an undisciplined rabble with their guard completely down in the rear, the enemy was running around like headless chickens, unable to decide whether to chase us or douse the flames. Their numerical superiority meant jack shit. On top of that, the front line erupted into utter chaos at the perfect moment, allowing us to wreak havoc far more smoothly than expected.
And as for me right now...
"Blergh..."
I was sprawled across a wooden handcart originally meant for hauling loot, writhing in the throes of violent sickness. Even I had to admit it was a pathetic sight—dragging all these men into the jaws of death only to lie around doing nothing because I was motion sick.
"Ugh, my head..."
I honestly couldn't endure it. Naturally, the horse wasn't the cause of this nausea. I'd been riding horses non-stop before getting here; why would I suddenly get saddle-sick now?
"So the rumors were true... the reason the prince never went to war..."
"At first, I thought he just made up an excuse because he was terrified of the battlefield..."
"Getting sick the moment he steps onto a battlefield—what a bizarre fellow..."
My Remus soldiers and the imperial troops alike were equally dumbfounded by my sorry state, though my men at least seemed to have heard the rumors.
"Ugh... Hey! You! Six o'clock! Raise your shield!"
The throbbing in my skull spiked violently. Forcing my leaden body up, I shouted at an imperial soldier standing on the side where the headache was pounding hardest.
"Excuse me?"
"'Excuse me' your ass, do you want to die?! Raise it right now! Over your damn head! Brace your gut and your arms if you don't want to get killed!"
"Y-Yes, sir!"
Startled by my roar, the soldier hastily obeyed, throwing his shield up over his head.
CLANG!
"...Huh?"
An instant later, a heavy bullet struck dead center against his shield, rocking him violently in the saddle.
"Damn it, I told you to brace yourself!"
The shield had saved his life, but the impact so close to his head had rattled his skull enough to cause a concussion. He began tilting off his horse, but I quickly stuck out a foot to shove him back upright.
"Someone grab him!"
"On it!"
A neighboring imperial soldier grabbed the dazed man, leaning him against his mount's neck. The warhorse, seasoned enough to sense its rider's distress, eased its gait to reduce the jostling.
Before I could catch my breath, another spike of killing intent pierced my temples like a needle. Clutching my forehead, I screamed toward General Lucius.
"General! Big one incoming! Magic bombardment! Six o'clock!"
"Ambushing the ambushers, are they? Now that's the spice of war!"
Grasping the urgency immediately, the general flooded his blade with aura and pivoted at the waist to face the rear. A few seconds later, just as I'd warned, a rain of magically conjured rock harpoons came hurtling down from six o'clock.
Even with Lucius here, taking a blind ambush like that head-on would have staggered our squad badly.
If it had been an ambush, that is.
My scream had bought him barely five seconds of advance notice. But handing five seconds to an aura master was tantamount to inviting him to an open duel of pure firepower.
"South Wind."
He thrust his blade into the empty air toward the incoming barrage. The aura infused into the steel began violently spiraling around the blade, erupting outward into a narrow, vicious tempest. The storm blooming from the sword's tip pulverized the man-sized rock harpoons or deflected them wildly off-course, sending several plunging right back into the enemy's own ranks to multiply the chaos.
"This wind... It's the Blade Wind! The Blade Wind of Remus, Lucius?! Why the hell is he here?!"
"Bwahahaha! Are there no imperial dogs with the guts to claim the head of a blind, frail old man?!"
"Who's claiming whose head... urgh...! General, looks like the front line has the momentum! Fire one big shot and let's get the hell out of here...!"
"A shame to leave a battlefield without even crossing blades properly... but so be it!"
Grumbling in mock disappointment, Lucius gathered aura into his blade once more. This time, as imperial soldiers moved to surround him after recognizing his identity, he swept the sword in a massive horizontal arc.
"North Wind."
Unlike the ferocious, piercing blast of the South Wind, the aura spilling from the blade coiled like a spring, dropping to the ground as a modest gust at first. But the moment that gentle breeze kissed the earth, it rapidly swelled in volume, expanding into a colossal gale. The rushing imperial soldiers were swept off their feet, tumbling across the dirt or sent flying through the air.
"Waaaaagh?!"
Had he unleashed the South Wind, anyone caught in the squall would have been shredded to mince, but its narrow trajectory would have left openings on our flanks. In contrast, while the North Wind lacked pure lethality, its sheer scale was incomparably vast. It was the ideal technique to carve out an escape route through enemy lines.
The moment the North Wind billowed to its full size, we charged straight back the way we came without looking back. The enemy troops shrieked, yet none dared pursue us in earnest. Lucius's gale was certainly an obstacle, of course, but the real reason was something else entirely.
"I-It's Imperial Princess Adelheid!"
Having seized momentum and torn the besieging army in two, the princess had already carved her way within spitting distance.
Thus, the clash between the suppression force and the besiegers drew to a close. What should have been an evenly matched war between two armies numbering ten thousand each ended in less than four hours as a completely one-sided massacre in favor of the suppression army, leaving the surviving seven thousand routed soldiers to flee in sheer, unadulterated terror.