Air Raid (3)
Only a knight can stop another knight. That was the absolute law of war, unchanged for a thousand years. Joseph believed this as well.
"Royal Guard, First Platoon. We will annihilate this relic of the old era."
Until the Royal Guard's machine guns spat fire, at least.
The knight, who had already exhausted a significant portion of his aura, could not withstand the point-blank barrage of machine-gun fire. Once the muzzle flashes faded, only a single knight remained, collapsing limply to the ground, riddled with dozens of bullet holes.
"G-gah... cough..." Joseph tried to speak, but he only coughed up a torrent of blood before collapsing. He would never rise again. On a battlefield where a single pull of a trigger could snuff out a life, there was no such thing as an honorable death.
One of the Royal Guard members kicked the knight's corpse into the sea and gestured. The platoon moved along the coastline, searching for their next target. The tide of battle had already turned.
Whenever a knight managed to breach the dense anti-air net and land on the ground, the waiting army pushed them back into the sea with overwhelming firepower. Though the knights resisted fiercely, their efforts were ultimately futile.
Even if they managed to wipe out an army platoon with great difficulty, the Royal Guard would inevitably appear from behind to unleash a devastating barrage.
The brilliant glow of tracer rounds lit up the dark night sky. Machine-gun fire traced deadly arcs across the city, accompanied by the ceaseless roar of artillery. In this entirely unprecedented form of warfare, the knights were utterly powerless.
"Die!"
A knight charging bravely with a lance entered the sights of a 20mm autocannon gunner. The difference in their physical capabilities was astronomical—a human weapon forged by the West over more than a decade versus a conscripted infantryman with barely a month of training.
Yet, even that vast chasm meant absolutely nothing in the face of the absurd firepower unleashed by a quadruple 20mm autocannon.
Budda-budda-budda-budda!
The moment the trigger was pulled, the charging knight's body jerked and danced in place. Ten seconds later, when the soldier finally released the trigger, the knight's body had been pulverized beyond recognition.
"Ha... haah... haah..." Panting heavily, the soldier stared blankly at the corpse. Then, he looked up at the autocannon, which was quietly venting wisps of gray smoke as if nothing had happened.
"Haha... Hahaha..."
Born the son of a factory worker, the soldier had spent his entire life admiring knights. The Empire's strongest swords possessed a romantic allure that easily captivated a young boy's heart.
Even after reaching adulthood, he couldn't let go of his longing for knighthood. Though his status was lowly and he was too poor to ever lay eyes on an elixir, and though he knew there was absolutely no chance... he had always envied them.
"And that's a knight?"
But... not anymore. He had merely twitched a finger. With that single, simple motion, a knight had been literally shredded to pieces. Even that vaunted aura was useless against a 20mm shell. The quadruple autocannon boasted a rate of fire of a thousand rounds per minute.
With fifteen fist-sized shells slamming into a target every second at speeds far exceeding the speed of sound, no human could possibly survive. Before this weapon, both knights and commoners were reduced to nothing but equal corpses. The soldier no longer feared knights, nor did he envy them. If anything...
"Has the knight who fled this way already been neutralized?"
The Royal Guard was far cooler. Composed of superhumans—elite soldiers, martial arts masters, and practitioners of aura cultivation methods—they were Kyle's direct escort. Masked and sprinting across the battlefield with heavy machine guns, they made even the legendary knights look like nothing.
"Good work, soldier."
Watching the Royal Guard member pat his shoulder and walk away, the soldier found himself harboring a new dream. The era of the knight was officially over.
"Your Grace. Approximately 250 enemy knights have been shot down and killed. There are no prisoners, and the Army and the Royal Guard are currently conducting a joint sweep for any survivors."
"Good."
By the time I arrived at Sector D-5, the battle was already winding down. The flares that had illuminated the sky were slowly dying out, and the continuous thunder of anti-aircraft guns in the distance had ceased. In the quiet city, only the occasional rattle of machine-gun fire echoed.
"What about Charles Raymonds?"
"We haven't found any body matching his description. He likely retreated once he realized the tide had turned against him."
Well, it was a bit of a shame, but it was fine. I hadn't really expected to kill Charles Raymonds here anyway. Frankly, it was much more convenient to leave him alive to claim the title of Archduke of the West. While I had built the Dreadnought and successfully pulled off a 'conquer and pay it back' strategy, Charles was the true master of that philosophy.
A lunatic who genuinely believed you could just conquer, pillage, and pay off your debts with the spoils. As long as a madman like him held the reins of the West, they would never get their act together.
"Ah, and the Royal Guard performed exceptionally well. They handled most of the knights who managed to make landfall."
"Excellent. We should continue researching applications in this direction."
It wasn't as if the South was entirely devoid of mages or knights. Defectors and exiles from the Center frequently sought asylum here. The Royal Guard was a unit formed by gathering those individuals.
My initial thought when founding them was simple: If a regular infantryman is deadly with a gun, wouldn't someone who can use magic be even deadlier?
Since I wasn't entirely sure how magic and firearms would synergize, I had simply kept them close under the moniker of the Royal Guard for the time being. But given this level of performance, they were ripe for full-scale deployment.
Perhaps as agents for the Intelligence Bureau, or as an elite assault unit for the Army. It was certainly worth investigating further.
"And the destroyer squadron?"
"They report having shot down approximately fifty wyverns."
The destroyer squadron's performance had also met expectations. Looking at it this way, it was a battle where we had gained everything. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to celebrate blindly. This battle was not a perfect victory.
"...And our casualties?"
Imperialism begins by erasing human individuality and brainwashing people with ideology. The state demands that its soldiers become mere tools, running wild while treating the lives lost in war as mere statistics. I couldn't say that approach was entirely wrong.
If a leader wept over every single death, a nation could never function. But... surely it was fine to remember them not as Kyle Leopold the leader, but simply as Kyle the man.
"One hundred and seven anti-air gunners and fifty-eight army soldiers were killed. Another one hundred and thirty-one sustained major or minor injuries and are currently receiving treatment."
From a leader's perspective, it was an overwhelmingly lopsided victory. This was a night raid by a wyvern unit—an attack previously deemed impossible to stop. Fending it off with such minimal casualties was an achievement destined for the history books.
Yet, a lingering discomfort remained. I couldn't shake the feeling that because the enemy had launched a sudden preemptive strike before the Empire's mediation could arrive, people who didn't need to die had lost their lives. Closing my eyes to suppress my emotions, I gave my orders.
"Compile the list of casualties and have it on my desk by tomorrow. And ensure the bereaved families receive ample compensation."
These were the casualties of our first war. For the sake of internal solidarity—and to secure a proper casus belli to launch our own campaign—I could not let this be swept under the rug.
"Also, clear out the main hall of Albion City Hall in one week."
It was time to inject some 20th-century propaganda and agitation into this romantic fantasy world.
"I will take the podium myself this time. And I'll write the speech myself, too."
The reason I wasn't leaving it to a professional speechwriter was simple. To stoke anger over their cowardly surprise attack, evoke sympathy for the victims, and ignite a burning desire for vengeance... I needed an appeal of raw, unadulterated emotion.
"Seek the understanding of the bereaved families. Offer additional compensation if necessary, but make sure they are present."
"Yes, Your Grace!"
To achieve my goal, the presence of the grieving families was absolutely vital. Along with representatives from every walk of life, from the lowliest laborers to the wealthiest capitalists.
I was no orator. For someone whose only writing experience in his past life was an elementary school diary, drafting a speech from scratch was a daunting task. But I possessed the knowledge of 21st-century humanity.
And if there was one thing I was confident in, it was my ability to adapt that knowledge to fit this world. After all, I had already used the Labor Standards Act to completely upend the Southern capitalists.
By the time the Empire's proposal for mediation arrived, it was already far too late. The proposal could be summarized as follows:
Clause 1. The West shall compensate the South for all profits obtained through Sarsen Fortress to date.
Clause 2. The South shall return the Sarsen territory to the West.
Both the South and the West had already tasted blood. With both sides at each other's throats, no one was willing to listen to a mediation proposal drafted by a naive Crown Prince whose head was filled with flowers.
For an entire week, Southern newspapers focused heavily on how unjust and cowardly the surprise air raid on the harbor had been. They published interviews with the grieving families, detailed the heroic struggles of the fallen, and decried the sheer baseness of the Western leadership. They clamored for the liberation of their compatriots from the clutches of the West.
Just as Southern public sentiment reached its boiling point, the Archduke of the South, Kyle Leopold, stepped forward to address the citizens directly.
Albion City Hall—a massive venue capable of holding up to five thousand people—was packed to the brim.