Chapter 350
Chapter 350
Iron Emperor — Chapter 350
As King Alsein spoke in a level tone, Marquis Bels carefully joined the conversation.
"The fact that combat supplies have already reached this far into the Roselin rear means preparations were made long ago."
"Haa."
Something like a sigh escaped King Alsein. How shocked they had all been when the withdrawal was first proposed, and then when they heard what would follow it.
'The moment the Empire Coalition and the Holy Empire clash, we turn and scorch the Holy Empire's southern territories to the ground.'
"Heh."
He had uttered something none of them had dared to imagine. They were hard-pressed just to hold the line, and now he meant to invade Holy Empire territory by exploiting the gap while the empires fought each other...
'Do you think you'll be safe when the imperial war ends?'
'How long do you intend to do nothing but block?'
He kept remembering Hwi-garam roaring at the allied nobles who had objected. Hwi-garam's explanation afterward had begun to sway them all, one stark analogy after another.
'Surely none of you think the Holy Empire fears the Four-Nation Alliance more than the Empire Coalition?'
'As I see it, to the Holy Empire we must look like flowers in a garden. Ones they can pluck whenever they please...'
After saying that, Hwi-garam began laying out the current situation in detail. He had judged that when the Empire Coalition landed, a reduction in forces was inevitable. No — however much the actual numbers might shrink, anyone could predict that they would pour far more into the Empire Coalition than they would spend worrying about the Four-Nation Alliance.
'To help bring that about, we are now preparing to withdraw. Everyone is packing. First, the Gauri army will begin the withdrawal. To the enemy, this will look like pulling the front line back. No matter what anyone says — is it not a war between empires?'
Hwi-garam's explanation had continued.
'There are combat supplies and wagons that have been secretly moved into the rear area.'
How shocked they had been at that moment.
'We brought them here while waiting for this very moment. In practical terms, the Gauri army is not retreating — it is going to fetch strategic matériel.'
And at the end, smiling, he had said:
'We’ve already packed everything anyway. There’s no need for separate attack preparations. We’ll catch the enemy completely off guard.'
Wasn’t that when, for the first time, everyone began seriously considering an advance into the Holy Empire?
A smile touched the corners of Alsein's mouth.
"The reason we wage war..."
The quiet words made Duke Baikal and Marquis Bels listen closely. They too remembered what King Alsein had said next.
'The war we fight is a tantrum to keep from being robbed. If we thrash about in place, cowering, will that make them afraid?'
Go Jin-cheon's gaze had swept sharply over them all.
'It means we fight a war in order not to fight a war.'
A great roar had burst forth.
'We set foot in Holy Empire territory and hit them as hard as we can. That will do more than holding them off here a hundred or a thousand times.'
After those words...
"Sometimes offense is the best defense..."
"Offense is the best defense."
King Alsein and Duke Baikal spoke at nearly the same moment.
The two looked at each other and smiled.
* * *
The soldiers approached countless wagons and piles of weapons. To one side, orcs and minotaurs dragged all this way in cages stood rolling their eyes with gags in their mouths. Everything gathered here was, in a word, matériel for war.
Some were weapons they had never seen before.
Dozens of sword blades and spearheads had been packed into the front of wagons without a gap. That was the anti-cavalry weapon, the sword chariot.
That was not all.
Mixed in among them were wagons shaped like turtle shells whose purpose no one could guess.
"What in the world..."
Even as the soldiers moved according to orders, they were bewildered by the situation unfolding. They had withdrawn on the grounds of pulling the front line back, and what appeared before them were massive strategic supplies.
Judging by the volume, even Risel the Archmage could not have gathered this much in a day or two. They must have accumulated it little by little from the beginning of the war.
Spears, swords, arrows were the basics, plus dried provisions and spare canteens...
No one knew what they were for, but supple, springy lengths of wood about the thickness of a child’s wrist had been trimmed uniformly and stacked on the wagons.
"Move quickly!"
At the urging shouts of commanders from every direction, the soldiers went to their assigned places and began gathering things. The forty-thousand-strong Gauri force that had fallen back for a withdrawal had turned into a single enormous transport column.
Once all the troops had packed the goods and formed up, Go Jin-cheon slowly rode his horse forward. As he passed before the lined-up troops, a low call began to resound from his lips.
"You will be wondering what you are doing here right now."
At Jin-cheon's words, the soldiers looked puzzled and listened closely to what came next.
"We are now taking these supplies and returning to the front."
"Ah!"
"I knew it."
Though they were muttered voices, murmurs of exclamation mixed among the soldiers — the sense that their own guesses had been right. After all, even at a glance, weren't there more things here for attack than for defense?
SQUEAL!
Startled by the soldiers' stirring, an orc held in a pen let out a low cry.
Jin-cheon, who had halted at the exact center of the formed-up troops, fell silent for a moment and slowly surveyed the soldiers.
Yeon Hwi-garam and Eulji Uru approached to his side, and before the troops arrayed in front of him, Gye Ung-sam, Samdopyo, Buyeo Gi-yul, Mong Ryu-hwa, and others were watching him.
Abruptly, Jin-cheon looked beside Uru.
The one who should be there was not.
That empty place.
It was far too vast.
Without betraying that desolate feeling, Jin-cheon turned his head back to the soldiers — then saw a man standing to one side of the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry. A man carrying a familiar weapon.
He wore the Chalgap of a Black Armored Ghost Cavalry trooper, yet something about his appearance was awkward. Though his breastplate was white like those of the other troopers, it was a scarred breastplate whose blood had not yet fully been rinsed away.
"He said this was Cheon Yuhwa’s breastplate. And that must be Buru’s great axe."
Perhaps because he had heard Jin-cheon's murmur, Mong Ryu-hwa blinked, thinking for a moment that his own name had been called.
Avilrun felt every nerve stand on end beneath Go Jin-cheon's fixed gaze. No—Jin-cheon was not looking at him, but at Eulji Buru's great axe strapped to his back.
"Avilrun."
"Reporting!"
At Go Jin-cheon's calling of his name, Avilrun hastily raised a military salute. As he lowered his head, Jin-cheon continued speaking.
"I heard Buru say you had guts, at least."
"Yes!"
At Jin-cheon's words, Avilrun simply repeated the salute.
"Look at me."
Avilrun raised his head and looked at Jin-cheon. A pressure he could not explain was emanating from the man. Avilrun swallowed the saliva rising in his throat and soothed his taut nerves.
"Have you grown accustomed to the axe?"
He meant Buru's great axe.
"I don’t intend to hand it over to anyone."
At his answer, Jin-cheon nodded minutely. Then he exchanged a few words with Eulji Uru beside him. Uru rode off somewhere for a moment and returned, and in his hands he held a symbol of Gauri.
The thing Buru had entrusted to him during the battle at Gaemun Mountain Fortress.
The crimson Three-legged Crow flag.
The memories of that day, buried deep in Avilrun's chest, surged back to life. His blood ran hot.
"This flag belonged to Buru, who fell in battle not long ago."
Taking the flag from Uru, Go Jin-cheon raised it high as he spoke. It was as though he were shouting at Avilrun, 'Listen!'
Clop.
Watching that flag, Avilrun saw himself riding his horse forward. The feeling of a hand pushing against his back had bewildered him for a moment.
'Ah...'
He felt the great axe on his back trembling faintly. A pull stronger than his own memory. Before he knew it, Avilrun had ridden up before Jin-cheon.
"..."
Before Avilrun's eyes, Jin-cheon held the flag, his lips pressed firmly shut. The Three-legged Crow embroidered on its crimson field was within reach if he stretched out his hand. Avilrun parted his faintly trembling lips with effort and forced his voice out.
"That..."
Inside his opened mouth, the words he wanted to speak circled, but they would not leap out. Then, once more, Buru's great axe keened.
Wooong.
It was a small resonance, but Jin-cheon, Hwi-garam, and Uru could feel it. A deep, rich resonance...
"That place! I’ll fill General Buru’s place and ride in his stead!"
Snatch!
Avilrun's eyes flew wide, and he seized the shaft of the Three-legged Crow flag that Go Jin-cheon was holding.
Not a single thought was in his head. The Yeolje had not bestowed it, yet like a madman he had grabbed hold of the flag in the man's hand as if to snatch it away. But something had driven him to it.
The knot lodged in his heart...
The knot forged from regret and tears, from having survived alone, had moved him to do this.
"Grant it to me!"
A common soldier, assigned to the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry by unspoken arrangement without receiving any official rank or title, was clutching the flag and demanding it of Jin-cheon like a madman.
Then a heavy weight settled into the hand gripping the flagstaff.
Jin-cheon's hand had left the staff.
"Then take it."
"...."
As the world seemed to turn white, Jin-cheon's words seared themselves into Avilrun's mind.
"Do not let go. As the former owner of that flag did, you will have to ride at the very front of battle."
Jin-cheon's continuing words carved themselves deeper into his heart.
"Even if arrows burrow into your body, even if your limbs are cut off by spears and blades, you must never..."
"...."
"Do not let go."
"At your command! By the will of His Majesty, Supreme One of All Heavens—even if arrows pierce my body, even if spears and blades sever my limbs, even if I lose my life, I will never... never let go of this flag!"
Where had such power come from? A vow burst forth as if it would shake the hearts of forty-thousand soldiers. As the strange vibration passed, Avilrun felt as though he were not himself and rode his horse back behind Jin-cheon. Uru's voice seemed to brush past his ear.
"The hell... don't you go dyin'. You die on me, and I'll kill ya myself."
A familiar way of speaking. A longed-for way of speaking. At the sound of it, Avilrun managed a smile. Then Uru's voice reached his ear once more.
"Smilin', are ya? Gandengi. Buru himself asked me to look after you, you know. Kuh-heh, look forward to it."
"...."
It seemed the manner of speaking was not the only thing they had in common.
Sensing Avilrun take his place behind him, Go Jin-cheon raised his eyes to the blue sky.
Clouds driven hither and thither by the wind.
A sky blue enough to sting.
"From this moment."
From Jin-cheon's lips, as he gazed at the sky, came words meant for the soldiers...
"To the Gauri army..."
The words he had held back and cherished all this time, he now spoke.
"I decree a punitive expedition."
At Jin-cheon's cry decreeing the expedition, the roar of forty-thousand Gauri soldiers shook heaven and earth.
It was a song proclaiming the punitive expedition.