Chapter 211
Chapter 211
Iron Emperor — Chapter 211
After that day's battle the front settled into a lull.
The Hawk Corps had launched a surprise attack, yet still suffered over a thousand casualties. More than three hundred were killed.
A major factor was that they had failed to detect the North Roselin army's rapid movement to fortify its camp. Still, the fortifications hadn't been completed, so the outcome could have been far worse.
On the other side, the North Roselin army lost three thousand men in the opening fire attack—soldiers who burned to death before they could even rise. Over two thousand more suffered wounds of varying severity. Of more than a thousand horses, they lost a third.
Add the barracks destroyed in the blaze and the loss was a painful one.
Count Bulkan judged that the troops' quick response and the field fortifications thrown up by the entire force during the day were the only reasons the damage stopped there, and he tightened his defenses even further.
They learned that a large Gauri-South Roselin army had appeared in their rear ten days later.
"There's no way an army that size could have appeared!"
Count Bulkan roared into the communication crystal orb.
"The enemy drawn up before us numbers sixty thousand, and you expect me to believe that's possible?"
[Two supply units bound for Count Bulkan's force were annihilated without even getting word out. We only learned of it because the third unit that was hit managed a last report. Lord Bulkan, just who exactly are you fighting? Or are you claiming South Roselin troops are springing up like water from a spring?]
Rebukes for the heavy losses rained through the crystal orb, along with an order to leave only a token force behind and redirect his troops. But Count Bulkan, having already been mauled past endurance, could not easily accept it.
"Then are you saying we were brought low by ghosts?"
[The Conrad plain is indeed a strategic point, but do you not understand that to catch an enemy force that has gotten behind us, a pincer from front and rear is far more effective?]
"And what if that force turns out to be a deception?"
[If it's a deception to seize Conrad, we lose only Conrad. But if the aim is to strike at our core fortresses, the damage is beyond anything Conrad is worth!]
Count Bulkan was forced by the capital's nobles to make the decision to pull away half his troops.
Even then, he did not know that a mere fourteen thousand men of the Hawk Corps had pinned fifty-five thousand of his force in place—and that, beyond that, eighteen thousand had been killed and four thousand wounded. He remained simply bewildered.
At that moment, only four thousand Eastern Army troops bustled through the Hawk Corps camp, occupying the space left by the nearly eight thousand Hawk Corps soldiers who had disappeared and continuing to deceive North Roselin's forces.
Chapter 65 — One Who Bears Seventy-Three Thousand Lives
The news of North Roselin's string of defeats, arriving alongside word of South Roselin's recovered capital, began to produce major shifts in the empires' policies.
The Holy Empire, which had let the other empires' condemnations slide off while secretly backing North Roselin, could only sigh at the absurd result.
"Hm."
Emperor Shau Hwan Millior's killing intent filled the great hall.
Among all the emperors in the Holy Empire's history, Emperor Millior was said to wield the greatest power—and to have spilled the most blood.
He had purged all seven of his half-brothers in a bloody sweep to sit on the throne, then exterminated even the nobles who followed them. Nothing could stand in his way.
Millior had already ruled the Holy Empire with formidable military authority, but after the Princes' Revolt there was no one left to restrain him. Even Duke Schung, the true power within the Holy Empire, was helpless before him. And that emperor was now enraged.
"They prattle about having no justification?"
"They do."
Duke Schung bowed his head and spoke in a subdued voice.
"Well. The leftovers of South Roselin's royal house who could have served as a pretext for a unification war have gone and gotten themselves killed, after all..."
Emperor Millior propped his chin on one hand and murmured with a nod. Then he suddenly turned his head and tossed out a question.
"In any case, wasn't justification always just an excuse?"
Duke Schung could offer no answer to Emperor Millior's remark. As the emperor said, among empires a cause was nothing more than pretense.
The Federal Empire and the Maritime Empire were blocking the Holy Empire's intervention in this affair to prevent the most powerful empire from stabilizing its rear.
The Federal Empire's weakness was that, as a federation of multiple duchies and kingdoms, it could not react quickly in a war of conquest, and even a single war required arduous negotiation to divide the spoils. The Maritime Empire, for its part, possessed a powerful navy, but its weak army made continental expansion difficult.
In that situation, the ever-growing Holy Empire was an enormous threat to them. The smaller kingdoms, after all, were no threat to an empire.
"Well, it doesn't matter. Something like Roselin—this empire can crush it whenever it sets its mind to it."
When Emperor Millior nodded unexpectedly, Duke Schung felt a different kind of unease.
"I hear Perisman has been pushed out in Haian?"
"He has."
"The Maritime Empire and Federal Empire will be celebrating."
All the political machinations wrought recently had collapsed in a single moment.
The war between Unified Roselin and Gauri, which they had intended to exploit as a pretext, had veered in an unwanted direction. No—the tide had swept back the other way, and the Unified Roselin they had labored to create was now split. Then, on top of that, Duke Perisman of the pro-Holy Emperor faction in the Haian Kingdom had fallen from power.
"Gauri."
A smile touched Emperor Millior's lips.
Gauri stood at the center of everything that was happening. Emperor Millior turned his head toward Duke Schung and posed a question.
"Do you know of Akjo Trakhan?"
"I do."
"Some call it the Divine Bird. Or the messenger of the heavens..."
From Emperor Millior's words Duke Schung immediately sensed that the emperor's attention was fixed on Gauri.
"Venerating a crippled bird with three legs—I can't fathom such a race."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Duke Schung agreed flatly.
"Do you recall our holy war, when we drove out the Demon Tribe who worshiped that evil bird that once dyed the world black?"
"I do."
There was no way he wouldn't know.
The tale was woven into the very founding of the Holy Empire, and it had served as justification for the demon hunts carried out again and again ever since...
Back then, before the Federal and Maritime Empires even existed—not just the Holy Empire but every kingdom had raised its voice to exterminate the Demon Tribe, and legend held that the number put to death in that purge had reached half the entire continent.
After the Demon Tribe withdrew, the Federal and Maritime Empires rose to check the Holy Empire, then the strongest power on the continent. That story was known even to children across the continent.
"A holy war is coming..."
At Emperor Millior's muttered words, Duke Schung could feel the flames of war beginning to spread.
* * *
"What!"
King Cadel Roselin's lips trembled violently.
"Haa."
Before King Cadel, who spoke in a drained voice, the wizard who had brought the news stood with his head bowed like a condemned man.
"How fares the conscription?"
"We are calling up able-bodied men through the third conscription, but it is insufficient to make good the losses from the last unification war, the Great Gauri War, and the South Roselin garrison. What's more, the young men have been bled dry—we are at the point of having to conscript even old men and boys."
Duke Palsieon, answering King Cadel's question, maintained a level tone throughout.
He had opposed the unification war backed by Holy Empire power from the outset, and he had also been steadfastly against the Gauri expeditionary war.
He had not, of course, foreseen things reaching this state, but as far as he was concerned, the pro-Holy Empire nobles bore the blame for all of it. Hadn't things now reached the point where even the Holy Empire was being cast aside as the other two empires invoked their own justifications?
The Haian Kingdom was now demanding the outstanding balance on the military supplies it had provided during the expedition.
If it were only Haian making noise they could ignore it, but the Federal Empire was joining the clamor from behind. Those powers likely believed North Roselin must be weakened further. Only if North Roselin were reduced and South Roselin restored to its feet would the containment of the Holy Empire continue.
"What of the forces on the Conrad plain?"
"They have withdrawn, leaving only the minimum necessary garrison. Together with the troops of Tremble Castle and Belwan Castle, they now stand opposite the Gauri-South Roselin allied forces."
As the urgent situation unfolded in the great hall, an urgent report arrived. A noble who saw the communication wizard rush into the hall frowned and demanded:
"What is so urgent that you behave rashly before His Majesty?"
"Tremble Castle has fallen!"
"What!"
The great hall was gripped by shock. At the next report, King Cadel could only feel the strength drain completely from his body.
"And Count Bulkan's force, which was withdrawing from the Conrad region... has been annihilated by the Hawk Corps and the Gauri-South Roselin alliance."
"What were the garrisons of Belwan Castle and Tremble Castle doing?"
"They cannot be reached."
"Haa..."
King Cadel could not continue.
They, who had so stubbornly clung to their lingering obsession with South Roselin, had now brought about a situation in which their own territory was being overrun.
"What in the world are they after?"
King Cadel's hollow voice echoed through the great hall.
* * *
Having circled around the Conrad plain, the Hawk Corps fell upon the rear of Count Bulkan's withdrawing force. At the same time, twenty thousand troops under Eulji Buru, who had received word beforehand and raced to the scene, struck Count Bulkan's front. The count's men, already exhausted in body and spirit by the Hawk Corps, collapsed without putting up a proper fight.
It did not stop there.
The troops that had sortied from Tremble Castle and Belwan Castle to strike the main camp led by Go Jin-cheon and King Alsein never received word of these developments and instead found themselves pushed back by an overwhelming disparity in numbers.
The original objective of the operation had been to drive the Gauri-South Roselin alliance into the center, apply pressure, and annihilate them. But with one wing of the attack—the axis Count Bulkan had been entrusted with—now destroyed, their strength had instead been fragmented.
In the end, the Gauri and South Roselin forces were able to bring down Tremble Castle, where only a garrison remained, with ease. Belwan Castle had also learned of Tremble Castle's fall, but its lord, who had led the troops out, was out of contact, and there was virtually nothing it could do.
It could only pray the allied army would pass them by.