Battle of Hisphil Castle (5)
"……!"
At my words, Zinor's expression drained of color for an instant—then, little by little, doubt began to settle across the old man's face.
The initial shock was one thing. What truly gave him pause was the certainty with which I had spoken: that Lady Anima would lose this battle.
"Listen here, Swen. After that utterly incomprehensible riddle of yours—how on earth do you arrive at a conclusion like that?"
Yuuri was not Luna.
If I simply went to her and said as much, she would never accept it. At best she would react the same way Zinor had.
To persuade her, I would have to put flesh on this conclusion.
Which raised another question.
Why was I going this far—persuading people, intervening—to help the Asius Army at all?
I had already repaid every debt of gratitude I owed her. No—if anything, the mere thought of Irene staking her life to carry out that operation made me feel as though I were the one still owed something.
And yet, if I still had to help them, what was the reason?
I didn't have to look far. For one thing, I was currently a member of the Asius Army myself.
Judging by what Anima had told me, and by the atmosphere of this nation—
the moment anything happened to her, the Asius Army itself would collapse at terrifying speed.
No. Not only her. The same would be true if Ernandof, Emma, or Epinel came to harm.
There was nothing to think about. Yuuri would throw her forces into a reckless charge under the banner of revenge. She might even ride that wave of vengeance to early victories—but in a prolonged war, she would inevitably fall to Serpina's army, whose sheer scale dwarfed hers. That much was so obvious I didn't even need my Intelligence to predict it.
The extraordinary bond among those five, forged through shared experience rising from the bottom, did have its merits, I supposed.
In an age of chaos, having people whose backs you could truly trust was an asset in itself.
After all, deception was the order of the day, and betraying one's lord barely even counted as a blemish in this world.
Irene and I were living proof of that—we had settled in without any particular difficulty.
But for every strength, there was a glaring weakness. Zinor himself was evidence of it: a capable man who somehow found himself sidelined and checked at every turn.
And as I had already reasoned—if even one of those five fell, the nation would crumble with almost mathematical certainty.
If Yuuri lost her judgment and went berserk, wouldn't that mean Irene and I would lose the very place we currently called safe haven?
And setting all that aside—looking at it from a broader strategic perspective—
if the Asius Army self-destructed this early and was swallowed by Serpina's forces, nothing good would come of it.
For the future Lunarien Army, the ideal configuration on the central continent was a three-way balance among Brans, Serpina, and Asius.
So this is where I have to step in.
Having decided to persuade them, I now needed to lay the groundwork.
Even just to face my lord and convince her, I first had to sort out the situation right here.
Which meant the person I needed to persuade at this moment was Zinor.
"Lord Zinor. Would you come over here for a moment?"
Instead of answering, Zinor looked at me with deep puzzlement—then, his expression turning grave, he stepped closer.
Hisphil Castle.
I found myself recalling those days at Anel Castle, when Irene and I had drawn maps together in that little house.
Back then, Hisphil Castle had stood on the border adjoining Charam territory.
Which meant I had already mapped the surrounding region.
I searched my coat, found the right chart, and spread it across the table.
"In the end, battles are fought on the ground."
I had played this game for well over ten thousand hours.
I knew nearly every possible scenario. If Anima's defeat was all but certain, I would be able to determine exactly how she would lose.
Let's see.
If Anima set out from Lacline Castle, there were three possible routes.
But there was no need to examine each one in turn.
A woman like her would invariably choose the shortest path—the straight line north.
Somewhat rugged, yes, but still the route that cost the least time.
"Among these three roads, which one would you take if you were launching a surprise attack?"
"……You've been doing nothing but asking questions without giving a single proper answer, lad. What exactly are you scheming?"
"I need to explain precisely why Lady Anima will be defeated."
"And you call that an answer?"
Zinor still looked thoroughly unconvinced.
From his perspective, I must have seemed to be talking in circles, grasping at clouds.
How best to handle this?
I could patiently explain my circumstances—but this was a moment that called for a firmer hand.
"Yes. Please tell me. I will give you an explanation you will find entirely persuasive."
"……."
Had I only just been commissioned into the Asius Army, this approach might well have failed.
But I had already produced several concrete results—and the man who had watched that process from the closest vantage was Zinor himself.
I couldn't read his true intentions, but the fact that he was trying to marry his adoptive daughter to me suggested he might take my words seriously.
Zinor studied me in silence for a long moment, lost in thought—then, as if steeling himself, he gave a slow nod and finally began to answer.
"……If one were launching a surprise attack, one would naturally take the center road—the shortest route."
"Just as I thought. I agree."
Guessing Anima's judgment was not difficult.
From her position, she would be exploiting the window while Hisphil Castle stood empty—attempting a surprise attack of her own, after a fashion.
In that case, she would push her soldiers hard if necessary, determined to arrive as quickly as possible.
"Hold on. You've been asking me questions, so grant me the right to ask one of my own. Better that than a one-sided lecture, wouldn't you say?"
"Please, go ahead."
"A surprise attack implies that Miss Anima secured grounds sufficient to justify one. What, exactly, were those grounds?"
In other words—what had Anima been counting on when she committed to the assault?
I still lacked the information to draw a solid inference.
Anything would do. I needed more on the woman named Anima Ingram.
"To answer that, I have no choice but to ask you about Lady Anima herself."
"You have no choice but to ask, in order to answer—is that it?"
Zinor turned the phrase over several times, then brought forth his reply.
"……Miss Anima, as you know, Swen, served as State Tactician of the Asius Army before I arrived. As for talent—I would say she has it. I never had the chance to observe her for long, but the trajectory Asius has walked was almost certainly drawn behind the scenes by her hand."
"I see. And her temperament?"
"I left my post soon after, so I can't speak in great detail…… but I do know she is extremely cautious. Shortly after taking office as tactician, I reviewed every strategy and plan she had proposed. Nearly all of them prioritized minimizing the possibility of failure above everything else. And if a scheme looked unworkable, she had a tendency to pull out immediately."
"Cautious, is she. That's enough. That helps. In that case, she would have at least confirmed whether the castle held troops or not."
"That seems the most plausible assumption."
A cautious nature would never have attempted a surprise attack on a whim.
And yet, by my deduction, she would lose that battle.
There were many possible scenarios, but they compressed into two broad categories.
First: she unluckily ran into some natural disaster.
Second: there were, in fact, troops present at Hisphil Castle.
Natural disasters…… set those aside for now.
As long as I couldn't predict them with precision, I couldn't rule them out. However low the odds, the possibility of a lightning strike or a meteor falling on the Asius Army could never be entirely dismissed. Even if events unfolded that way, the result—defeat—would remain unchanged.
But right now I needed to persuade Zinor. And beyond him, Yuuri.
Imagine me saying, with a perfectly serious face, "Lady Anima's forces will be defeated because a lightning bolt will strike them."
How could she—how could even the man standing in front of me—possibly take that at face value?
Even though I was someone who had once called down a meteor from the sky, the reality was that no one would readily believe a claim as absurd as a natural disaster.
So it couldn't be something like that. It had to be a story that sounded plausible to anyone who heard it.
Which left the second conclusion—
"At Hisphil Castle…… there are troops she could not detect, even after checking once."
"Troops she couldn't detect? There you go again with another incomprehensible claim."
"But it's the truth. Soldiers can't spring from the sky or sink into the earth…… so they must be hidden somewh—"
As I answered, staring hard at the map, something caught my eye.
"……Huh?"
"?"
Near Hisphil Castle and Lacline Castle—more precisely, to the southeast of Hisphil—there was a modest mountain range enclosed by forest.
I pointed to it.
"If one were hiding troops…… it would be here."
Hiding them there lent further credibility to the fact that Anima would lose. It was the perfect position from which to pull forces back and strike the rear.
"An ambush? ……Then there's something odd about that."
"What is it?"
"Just now you declared that Anima would be defeated. But Miss Anima marched out with more than fifty thousand troops. To force her into defeat, you'd need at least that many soldiers, wouldn't you? I find it hard to believe one could conceal a force of that size in that area."
He was right. Ambushing more than fifty thousand men in that vicinity was, no matter how one looked at it, an extremely difficult feat.
Suppose they somehow managed it.
But while those troops dropped south to hit the rear, how would they defend the completely emptied Hisphil Castle?
Under those conditions, Anima's defeat was no longer a certainty.
And yet, no matter how I looked at it, an ambush seemed correct……
Given that a definitive prediction had already emerged, I needed material solid enough to justify that certainty.
What was I missing?
Change the perspective.
Speculating about Anima's movements ends here.
From now on, I would think as if I were Serpina.
"The fact that an ambush was set at all…… suggests that Serpina's army anticipated an attack from Asius, wouldn't you agree?"
"Agree or not—there's hardly any other possibility, is there? No one stations an ambush for no reason."
"In that case…… Serpina has laid a trap, hasn't she……?"
"A trap?"
Yes.
Speaking the thought aloud made the picture grow steadily more concrete.
This was Serpina's trap.
"She deliberately emptied the castle to lure Lady Anima in. Even someone as cautious as Lady Anima was led to believe the fortress held no troops."
"A trap, you say."
Zinor studied the map, checking the spot I had indicated several times over.
"So what you're saying is this: she marched her forces out to set the trap, ambushed them at this point in the mountain range—and that is why Anima will lose?"
"Wait. That alone isn't enough. If it was convincing enough to deceive even Lady Anima…… then not to the south where the mountains are, but in another direction……?"
Wait.
That was it.
Anima would have confirmed that Serpina's army had marched out somewhere—and only then moved.
So where had they gone?
I checked the map again.
South of Hisphil Castle lay Lacline Castle.
Eastward, past rough terrain, a fork appeared leading toward Gelstrom Castle and Valharat Castle.
To the north stood a castle belonging to Serpina's army.
And to the west…… a castle belonging to Brans.
North was out of the question. Serpina had no reason to pull her forces to the rear. If she had, Anima would have won, not lost—contradicting the conclusion I had reached through my predictions.
If east, Anima sending troops to Hisphil would still lead to victory. Valharat Castle could simply sortie to intercept. A messenger would have arrived reporting enemy forces approaching from that direction. So that was out.
South meant Lacline Castle. From our army's perspective, there was no reason to abandon the easy path of holing up in a fortress and march out to intercept at a distance. Anima, having served as tactician, would possess that much sense.
Which left the west.
Brans territory.
"Serpina's army attempted a march toward Brans territory. That is why…… Lady Anima seized the opening. There is no other possibility."
If they were going to march out, this was the most natural direction.
In fact, it was the only one—if Anima was to conceive of a "surprise attack."
So had they staged a westward departure, then quickly wheeled the troops around to the ambush site?
No. There isn't enough time.
Based on the map, they would inevitably run into Anima's forces before reaching the ambush position.
Even turning back at maximum speed, they would only make it roughly to the midpoint between Hisphil Castle and the Asius Army.
In that case, depending on circumstances, Anima could still win. It would mean the enemy had deliberately left their fortifications and come out into the open.
And if they then chose to dig in and hold, it became even stranger. From Anima's perspective, she could simply withdraw her forces—and for something so minor, the whole maneuver would have been absurdly elaborate.
And just as that thought settled—
"Hmm…… then when exactly is the ambush set? Don't tell me you mean to claim Serpina's army has additional forces we haven't accounted for?"
"……Ah."
At his words, a sound slipped from me unbidden.
In that instant, the fog that had clogged my mind cleared as though swept away by a sudden wind.
"Lord Zinor—you're exactly right."
"……What did you say?"
"The ambushing force…… already exists!"
"!!!"
Serpina's military strength is not limited to the main force at Hisphil Castle alone.
Once I thought of it that way, every single action of Serpina's army fell into place with almost unnerving precision.
Even the deliberate emptying of the castle now had a perfectly convincing explanation.
All that shifting of troops back and forth no longer looked like pointless flailing—it looked like something planned from the very beginning.
"First, they deliberately move as though withdrawing their forces westward, prompting the Asius Army to commit its own troops."
"Once they confirm Lady Anima's departure, they rapidly reverse course and head south of Hisphil Castle. They may not reach the ambush site—but that doesn't matter. An ambushing force is already in place."
"At that point, the Asius Army can stand and fight, or it can flee—neither option helps them. The additional forces lying in wait simply close in on the rear."
"And that is why—"
Only then did the picture come fully into focus.
The image of Anima's defeat.
"Lady Anima will lose this battle."