Chapter 285
Chapter 285
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 285
Though his voice boomed with authority, the worry in his eyes remained as he heard the urgent report. Viscount Kwai stepped out of his tent.
Before him stood a cavalry scout, drenched in blood and screaming.
"What in the world happened?!"
"Hrk... The entire reconnaissance unit that went out with Sir Scandia—everyone except me—was wiped out!"
"What?!"
He'd already had a sinking feeling just from the man's state, but now, seeing with his own eyes that an attack force was closing in, Viscount Kwai couldn't help the tension that seized him.
Yet, as he quickly considered the probable size of the enemy raiding party, Viscount Kwai regained his composure. He summoned the gathered knights and staff officers and ordered battle preparations.
He'd dispatched five reconnaissance squads, and only a single man had returned. That meant an enemy assault was imminent.
What other reason could there be to annihilate scouts sent in every direction?
Viscount Kwai looked at the lone surviving scout and thought it fortunate, at least. Thanks to him, they'd been able to anticipate the enemy's arrival.
"Move faster!"
"Secure those wagons tight!"
"Spearmen! What are you doing?!"
They called out every exhausted man who'd crawled into his tent. As they built a defensive formation, the knights' necks bulged with veins, and their urgency spread to the soldiers, who scrambled to their positions.
Before long, the soldiers stood in ranks, waiting restlessly in place.
"Damn it all, what a mess."
"Still, better we found out beforehand."
Even the soldiers in the rear, who knew nothing of strategy, understood the terror of a surprise attack. So, though they grumbled, they stayed well under control within the assembled ranks.
The deep darkness began to recede, little by little.
The enemy assault they'd feared all night never came.
"Maybe they aren't coming..."
A murmur of relief escaped Viscount Kwai as he gazed toward the brightening east. After all, a supply unit's sole purpose was the safe delivery of its cargo.
"It seems the enemy realized we'd quickly established a defensive formation."
A staff officer approached Viscount Kwai, a smile spreading across his face. Viscount Kwai nodded at his words and slowly made his way back toward his quarters.
"It appears so. Even so, let's not break formation—rest in place, have breakfast, then we'll move out."
"Understood, my lord. Please, get some rest."
"Then I leave it to you."
Viscount Kwai twisted his body this way and that, loosening muscles gone stiff from a night of tension, and walked to his quarters.
That was the beginning.
From that day forward, every scout was hunted down and killed.
Not that they could simply stop sending scouts. But as the attacks on mounted scouts continued without pause, the radius of their reconnaissance shrank, inevitably.
It was as if the objective wasn't the supplies at all, but simply to ensure no scout ever made it back alive.
By the third day of this, the soldiers, kept on emergency standby night after night, were worn ragged—and the knights were just as exhausted.
BOOM!
"You rat bastards!"
Viscount Kwai's bloodshot eyes blazed as his fist smashed through the command post table.
"These damned bastards—since they can't strike our main force directly, it looks like they've made up their minds to target only the scouts."
"Exactly. Today, when we reduced the scouting radius, didn't the attacks drop off?!"
One by one, they denounced the enemy's cunning.
And in truth, after two straight days of the scouts suffering near-total annihilation, once their patrol radius no longer extended far from the main force, the evening saw—for the first time—a reconnaissance squad return without any attack at all.
"It appears the enemy has been this relentless in hopes of slowing our supply unit's pace, even slightly."
"Indeed. At any rate, the enemy force identified so far numbers ten thousand at most. I see no need to respond so passively."
As the officers' denunciations grew louder, Viscount Kwai raised a hand and suppressed their anger.
"Whatever the case, from tomorrow, we have no choice but to increase the unit's speed."
"Wouldn't it be better to divide our forces and hunt the enemy down..."
"Our mission isn't to fight a war—it's the safe transport of supplies!"
"M-my apologies."
The young noble who'd spoken up on impulse slunk back as he was sharply rebuked.
"Everyone, withdraw and rest for tomorrow."
"Understood."
Viscount Kwai suppressed his rising fury and watched the young knights and officers file out of the command tent.
"Fools."
The low murmur was a reprimand aimed at the young knights and staff.
Viscount Kwai was certain that if those young knights led troops out in pursuit, it would be exactly what the enemy wanted.
If that weren't the case, why else would they bypass direct attacks and so thoroughly target only the scouts?
Viscount Kwai went to his cot in the command tent and lay down, readying himself for the next day's march. He cursed the stupid young whelps one more time and fell asleep.
It wasn't the morning light that woke him—it was a sudden clamor of shouts mixed with screams.
"Wh-what?!"
Viscount Kwai sprang up, his expression still dazed, and threw open the tent flap.
"Aaagh!"
"I said run, damn you!"
Screams echoed vividly from the distance, while soldiers scrambled chaotically right before his eyes.
"What in the hell is going on here?!"
Spotting a messenger racing toward him, Viscount Kwai glared as if ready to devour the man and demanded an explanation.
"Th-the enemy has attacked!"
"You think I don't know that?! Where are all the commanders, and why are you the one coming to me?!"
As Viscount Kwai's roar erupted again, the messenger flinched.
Despite shrinking back, the messenger began blurting out his report automatically.
"A-all the commanders are engaged in the defense. We're completely surrounded."
"What... are you saying?!"
Viscount Kwai momentarily doubted his own ears and asked again. But the messenger's reply...
"Our unit is, literally, entirely encircled. Roselin Kingdom banners are covering the ground in every direction!"
Struggling to master his terror, the messenger repeated the same desperate report with unwavering clarity.
For a moment—just a brief moment—Viscount Kwai's ears heard nothing at all.
"H-how many enemies are there? Surrounded—does that even make sense?!"
After a pause, Viscount Kwai's lips trembled as he spoke, snarling at the blameless messenger.
"The enemy numbers looked to be at least fifty or sixty thousand, easily!"
"Do you think that's even possible?!"
The desire to reject the reality the messenger had brought bled through Viscount Kwai's voice.
"Bring me my horse! Someone bring my horse, now!"
Viscount Kwai's shout rang out, mingling with the stench of blood on the battlefield.
* * *
"Push them relentlessly. Even if the battle draws out, advance with full precaution and keep the pressure on!"
"Uwaaaah!"
Duke Helios Baikal's booming command thundered across the field, and the soldiers answered with a roar.
"Eeyaaaah!"
Crunch!
A Roselin soldier on the front line swung his axe, and the Holy Empire soldier couldn't even muster a scream before surrendering his life. He'd managed to block the first blow, but the cold blade of the sword thrust that followed took his life all the same.
The same scene was playing out across the entire front. Hasn't history always taught what becomes of an army outnumbered and overwhelmed?
From the very start, Duke Baikal had aimed for the Holy Empire supply unit's scouts. First, he'd split his troops into units of roughly a thousand each and positioned them on all sides of the supply convoy.
How many scouts could there possibly be?
It was inevitable they'd become prey for the Roselin Kingdom forces that had been divided into thousands.
As the scouts were methodically picked off one after another, their patrol radius naturally shrank.
Through this, Duke Baikal achieved three objectives.
By completely ignoring the supply unit and targeting only the scouts, he'd made it appear as though the Roselin army was so afraid of the supply unit's numbers that they didn't dare launch a direct assault.
If a hotheaded young noble had then split his forces to sally out in pursuit—well, that would've been the icing on the cake.
Second, by moving the dispersed forces as close as possible, he'd been able to encircle the enemy. The shortened scouting range had allowed them to approach undetected.
That was what made the large-scale surprise attack possible.
And third—and finally—he'd kept the Holy Empire troops under sustained tension, forcing them to live with the constant possibility of an ambush.
From the very first night, hadn't the exhausted soldiers of the supply unit been dragged out of their tents by the annihilation of the scouts and made to crouch on the cold ground in defensive formation until morning, trying to catch what sleep they could?
And when that was repeated for two more days, their nerves grew razor-sharp. All the while, Duke Baikal's forces had been getting ample rest.
Then, as dawn approached, Duke Baikal's troops struck, closing in from all directions.
The difference in fighting strength between the two forces wasn't fifty thousand to thirty thousand—it had become more like one hundred thousand to thirty thousand.
In the end, Duke Baikal's operation—though it had lasted only a short three days—had been more than enough to wear the Holy Empire soldiers to the breaking point.
He could have led his main force of fifty thousand to strike at once. But the ultimate goal was to subdue the enemy without friendly losses, wasn't it?
There was a natural reason for this: the Holy Empire's supply unit wasn't all there was to worry about. To sustain logistics for a massive force of a hundred fifty thousand, supply lines had to be maintained continuously over fixed intervals.
But that, too, had been a miscalculation on the Holy Empire's part.
No—it was a miscalculation they'd been bound to make.
Would a colossal empire really choose a swift, decisive war against a minor kingdom?
Few commanders bother with such tactics against an opponent who looks ready to collapse at the first push. It's the same principle as the saying that a lion hunts a rabbit with all its strength.
There was certainly an element of looking down on the Roselin Kingdom. But since the purpose of the campaign wasn't mere punishment—it was conquest—they intended to advance by seizing total control of the territory as they went.
That meant securing each region, turning it into a foothold, and thoroughly absorbing it.
And looting was what kept the Holy Empire soldiers' morale high.