Chapter 13: First Battle
Chapter 13: First Battle
A few days passed while I watched and learned various things inside the Castra Vetera fortress.
Then one day…It was when the dawn fog lay thick over the Rhine.
I jolted awake to the sound of a trumpet.
It wasn’t the usual wake-up call.
A short, urgent blast repeated three times.
“Enemy!”
“All troops, assemble!” General Comazon’s booming voice echoed through the entire fortress.
I quickly put on my armor and grabbed my weapons.
A battle I’d only known in theory up until yesterday was about to become reality.
Ugh… My heart’s pounding, and tension and excitement are crashing into each other!
“Stay calm. We’re not going to die that easily. Trust me.”
So I’d actually end up saying “trust me,” huh.
This was a completely different position from when I was carrying out high priest duties.
The soldiers gathered in the central square of the fortress looked serious—but in different ways.
The veterans were calm,
but young soldiers like me, experiencing real combat for the first time, were visibly tense.
“According to the scouts’ report last night, roughly three hundred Alemanni attempted to ford the river fifteen kilometers downstream,” Comazon explained, spreading out a map. “They’ve currently seized two small villages inside our territory. Our mission is to drive them off and push them back across the river.”
Around sunrise, four hundred Roman soldiers left the fortress.
I was part of the advance group, alongside Comazon.
The early-morning scenery along the Rhine…It was spectacular.
The water flowed quietly, mist rising and creating a mysterious atmosphere.
On both banks, dense beech forests spread out, and birdsong sounded peaceful.
In a landscape this beautiful,
it was hard to believe a blood-soaked battle would break out soon.
“Varius—do you see that… smoke?” Comazon pointed into the distance.
Downstream, a black pillar of smoke rose into the sky.
It looked like smoke from a village the Alemanni had occupied.
“The most important thing in your first battle is staying calm,” Comazon advised me. “Even if you’re scared, don’t panic. Act the way you were trained. And never, ever break formation.”
“Yes, General. I’ll remember.”
After about two hours of marching, a scout ran in to report.
“General! Enemy spotted! Around one hundred have occupied the village on the hill!”
Comazon confirmed the enemy’s position. “As expected. They deliberately took the high ground and are waiting for us.”
I stared at the distant hill.
Between wooden buildings, I could make out Alemanni warriors.
They held long spears and shields, and some were mounted.
They look more organized than I expected. At that level, can you even call them barbarians?
Right. The standard of “barbarism” versus “civilization.”
It’s always written with the victor as ruler.
“They’re not mere raiders,” a veteran centurion muttered. “Judging by their movement, they look like a well-trained unit.”
Comazon planned carefully. “A frontal assault will cost too much. We attack from three directions at once.”
The Roman force split into three groups.
The main force would draw attention from the front, while the left and right wings attempted an encirclement.
I was placed with Comazon in the right-wing attack group.
“Varius, the first thing you’ll learn is Rome’s organization,” Comazon said. “We fight with discipline as a unit, not personal bravery. Do you remember the testudo formation?”
“Yes, General. A formation that locks shields overhead and to the sides to block arrows and spears.”
“Correct. You’ll use it in real combat soon.”
At noon, the attack signal finally sounded.
The Roman troops moved in perfect synchronization from three directions at once.
From that moment, my heart started hammering violently.
The only “army experience” I had in my previous life was target shooting, field drills, and individual combat training…But actual close-quarters melee?
The Alemanni noticed Rome’s movement and began responding.
Their war cries echoed through the valley.
“Wōden mit uns! (Odin is with us!)”
“ROMA INVICTA! (Rome is invincible!)”
The Roman troops answered immediately.
Kill or be killed…
This was the moment I truly felt that battle was a fight of momentum.
The right wing moved through the forest, circling to approach the enemy’s flank.
I advanced with my shield beside Comazon.
The sound of armor snagging on branches…
Soldiers’ rough breathing…
Weapons clashing…
“Now! Attack!”
At Comazon’s command, the Roman troops burst out of the woods.
Alemanni warriors spun around in shock, but it was already too late.
Roman pila flew through the air.
I threw my pilum the way I’d been trained.
The spear struck cleanly into an enemy warrior’s shield.
“Good! Now—swords!” Comazon drew his gladius.
I drew mine as well, raised my shield, and charged with a shout.
The first Alemanni warrior I faced was huge—a bearded man.
Damn… this was heavyweight versus lightweight.
He muttered something and swung a long seax, a Germanic sword.
Do it the way you were trained.
I repeated it to myself again and again, blocked the attack with my shield, and countered with my gladius.
My blade scraped his armor, but it didn’t land a fatal wound.
The Alemanni warrior roared and raised an axe.
I lowered my body on instinct and lifted my shield.
Clang! Thud!
The axe slammed into the shield, wood splintering.
“Varius! To the side!” I heard Comazon’s shout.
I dodged sideways and aimed for the enemy’s flank.
This time, my gladius slipped cleanly into a gap.
The Alemanni warrior groaned and collapsed.
How I even stabbed him…
I can’t clearly remember.
It felt like my body moved on instinct, doing whatever it had to do to survive.
In the instant I dropped my first enemy, an odd emotion surged through me.
A rush of victory—and then, suddenly, the heavy reality that I’d taken a life.
But that was all.
I didn’t even have time to think. The fight kept going.
Rome’s organized assault worked.
Struck from three directions at once, the Alemanni fell into chaos.
Their individual bravery couldn’t stop Rome’s systematic tactics.
“Testudo!”
At Comazon’s command, the Roman troops formed the turtle formation.
Shields locked perfectly above, below, left, and right, forming a nearly impenetrable wall.
I became part of the formation, matching my breath and timing with my comrades.
Alemanni arrows and spears struck the shields with loud bangs, but the formation didn’t waver.
“Advance!”
The testudo pushed forward slowly, compressing the enemy line.
The Alemanni warriors panicked at the tactic.
They were used to fighting with individual valor—they didn’t know how to respond to disciplined mass tactics like this.
How much time passed?
It felt like eternity—and at the same time, like only a few seconds.
After fierce fighting, the Alemanni line began to collapse.
Their cohesion broke sharply when their leader—someone who looked like their commander—was wounded.
“Retreat! To the river!” They shouted in Germanic.
They started retreating in disorder.
Some fled on horseback; the rest ran on foot toward the Rhine.
“Pursue!” Comazon ordered. “But don’t chase too deep. The objective is to drive them back across the river.”
The Roman troops pursued in disciplined formation.
I ran with my comrades.
From that point on, fear vanished completely.
Adrenaline surged, and even exhaustion disappeared.
Is this what it feels like to be overflowing with morale?
The retreating Alemanni attempted a last stand on the riverbank.
With the river behind them, there was no more escape.
“If you surrender, you’ll live!” Comazon shouted in Germanic.
But the Alemanni warriors seemed to have decided to fight to the end.
The final riverbank battle was even more savage.
They were cornered, and they resisted desperately.
I had already fought three enemies, and my armor was scratched all over.
The mud near the water made my footing unstable.
So this was what “a muddy brawl” really meant.
I nearly slipped—barely got through a dangerous moment.
Then, beside me, a young Roman soldier was stabbed by an enemy spear and collapsed.
“Medic!” I screamed until my throat tore.
Even in battle, I couldn’t stop worrying about my comrades.
By the time the sun began tilting west, the battle finally ended.
The surviving Alemanni escaped by riding makeshift rafts across the Rhine into Germania.
A complete Roman victory.
“Well done, Varius!” Comazon clapped my shoulder. “For a first battle, you fought extremely well. You’re not even big, but you’ve got a stubborn grit in you—hah!”
Only then did I finally catch my breath and look around.
Bodies from both sides were scattered across the battlefield.
With the joy of victory came the brutal reality of war.
“This is a soldier’s reality,” the veteran centurion said beside me.
“It’s glorious, but it’s also sad. Still—if we don’t fight here, Rome’s peaceful citizens will be in danger.”
Well…
I couldn’t bring myself to say, It isn’t peaceful, not out loud.
On the way back to the fortress, Comazon asked me,
“What do you think you learned today?”
“That the most important thing for a soldier isn’t individual bravery, but cooperation with comrades,” I answered carefully. “And that war isn’t only glorious.”
“Correct. True courage is completing the mission while still feeling fear and terror. You showed that today.”
By the time we reached the fortress at night, I felt like a completely different person.
Not the nervous boy who left that morning, but someone who had returned as a real soldier after tasting combat.
Like I’d become a real man.
Standing on the fortress wall, looking out over the Rhine, I replayed the day’s battle.
The peace of the Roman Empire was guarded by small frontier battles like this—and now I was part of it.
But even through countless battles and wars of killing and dying, the wheel of history kept turning.
Events piled up…until they finally burst like a flood, and even a giant empire like Rome disappeared into the back alleys of history.
In the distance, the Germania forest sank into darkness.
Tomorrow, and the day after, there would be more small battles here.
Now I had to learn the meaning of all of it with my body—so that later, when I became emperor, I could enact real policy.