A Gift That Conveys the Heart
A Gift That Conveys the Heart
I had completed my military service in my past life... but that aside, as someone who was discharged as a mere private, I had never once commanded troops in a real battle.
Yet even so, apart from the military studies I'd pursued in this world, there was a rather unexpected reason why commanding an army felt familiar to me.
A game I'd enjoyed back during the war.
A title from the so-called strategy simulation genre.
Specifically, a game that had dominated the 90s and maintained a steady popularity ever since—a classic known as StarCraft.
In that game, which I must have played thousands... maybe even tens of thousands of times, humanity often found itself in battle against psychically gifted aliens.
Aliens who would blanket a fixed area with a lightning storm that could scorch the earth—the so-called 'Psi Storm.'
They called it psionic power, but in practice it was no different from magic, and if your forces took a direct hit, your carefully assembled armored units—tanks and all—would melt away in an instant like ice cream on a summer day.
But life is a series of blessings in disguise, as they say.
The painful memories from those days now helped me quickly figure out how to deal with an enemy who wields cheat-like skills that might as well be sorcery.
Back when I was playing, there were essentially two ways to mitigate damage from Psi Storm.
One was to use highly mobile units to dodge the storm while simultaneously assassinating the caster.
The other was simply to exhaust the enemy's energy... their so-called mana.
Psi Storm might be a devastating offensive tool, but it was never infinite.
Each use consumed a considerable amount of energy, and if a casting failed, the enemy was inevitably left with a window of vulnerability while they gathered mana again.
And I was able to apply this insight to the current battle without much difficulty.
For starters, Zhang Jiao's sorcery was certainly formidable, but a sandstorm alone seemed to lack the lethality to outright kill people.
The falling lightning bolts were reasonably threatening, but their role also seemed focused less on dealing actual damage and more on the terrifying, disorienting noise they produced.
After all, in the previous battle, even when our forces had been hit head-on by that magic, the number who actually died in the process was negligible—the real casualties were mostly those directly cut down by the Yellow Turbans or who had simply fled.
Moreover, from what I'd roughly observed, a yellowish energy always lingered in the sky for a certain time before the magic activated, which suggested a casting time also existed.
In other words, despite the terrifying appearance of the magic, if you made up your mind to dodge, you might be able to weather it with surprisingly little harm.
On top of that, there was one more decisive fact.
Judging by the records General Lu Zhi had left behind, and from the numerous battles fought against the Yellow Turbans so far, the Yellow Turbans under Zhang Jiao's command had never once used such grandiose magic before.
Merely to hide their true strength?
The battles they'd fought against General Lu Zhi up to now were every bit as fierce as the current situation. That explanation didn't hold up.
If they had kept this power hidden all along and only now brought it out, that meant there was some kind of restriction on using the magic.
Whether it was mana like in the game or something else, the fact that they were conserving it so carefully meant there was a high probability that using it carried some kind of risk.
"My apologies... I am not entirely sure I follow what you mean."
"You need strength to use the secret arts? Ma... na? What is that, Gonglu?"
"That they disturb the heavenly order and thus shorten their lifespan... is that the gist of it?"
"Er... well... something like that."
Unexpectedly, Dong Zhuo and the other ladies couldn't fully grasp this explanation.
It wasn't that they were unintelligent—living in a world with virtually no fictional concepts like fantasy or magic, their failure to understand was only natural.
I supposed it was a little like trying to explain a fantasy novel to someone from my grandfather's generation. They simply could not quite wrap their heads around it.
For them, trying to resolve it through superstitious means—like how Liu Bei in the Original Timeline supposedly sprinkled animal blood to block the Yellow Turbans' sorcery—would probably be easier to swallow.
Well, since I didn't believe in that sort of method myself, I'd already shelved the idea for the time being...
In any case, understanding or not, they had entrusted me with full authority over this matter, and thanks to that, I was able to execute the plan I'd conceived without any significant friction.
To emphasize mobility, we set aside the infantry and operated solely with cavalry to provoke the enemy.
The Yellow Turbans, who were mostly feeble infantry, would have no choice but to react to our movements.
My prediction proved precisely correct...
and as a result, I successfully baited the bastards beautifully.
Just as our ladies hadn't fully understood my explanation, the other side also seemed unable to grasp how I was responding to them.
After all, in all the world, whether in simulation or reality, could there possibly be anyone besides me who had been hit by magic tens of thousands of times on the battlefield?
The result: five times.
That was the number of times the bastards wasted their magic on empty ground after the cavalry had already dodged.
They weren't complete fools either; at some point, they started trying to gauge the situation and hold back on using their magic. But the moment that hesitation showed, our armed cavalry would take a little nip at their lines, and the bastards had no choice but to resort to magic again.
And for my part, I just needed to signal a withdrawal each time. Simple.
After getting burned a few times like that, the bastards stopped using magic altogether, their eyes bloodshot as they focused entirely on defending their front.
It was a clear signal that they wouldn't fall for it anymore, but that hardly mattered.
The bastards were... already as good as inside the cage.
*
"Kheuheok! Kulleok! Kulleok!"
"B-Brother!"
"Great and Worthy Teacher!"
"Keuk... th... these brats..."
Retching up blood, Zhang Jiao collapsed roughly to the ground.
The result of using esoteric arts in rapid succession had placed a fatal burden on a body that was already in poor condition.
"This won't do. Escort the Great and Worthy Teacher inside."
"Y... yes! General!"
At Zhang Bao's order, subordinates moved to support Zhang Jiao.
But Zhang Jiao raised a hand and stopped them.
"B-Brother?"
"There is... no need."
"B... but Brother, at this rate...!"
Zhang Bao tried to say something.
But his mouth fell shut at the sight of Zhang Jiao gazing this way with a dark expression.
Zhang Jiao's face was pale as a guttering candle flame.
And then, a single book he held out toward Zhang Bao.
The Essential Arts of Great Peace.
In that instant, his younger sibling Zhang Bao knew instinctively what it meant.
"Elder... Brother..."
"Kulleok! ... G... go... go and lead the vanguard. Begin the advance. If we march on their main camp, those curs will have nowhere left to flee. Once you've pinned them down, I shall call upon heaven's power one final time to finish them."
"... Understood, Brother..."
Zhang Bao answered, suppressing his grief.
Receiving the Essential Arts of Great Peace, he took one last long look at his elder brother before speaking in a resolute voice.
"The Azure Heaven Is Dead... The Yellow Heaven Shall Rise."
"In the Jiazi Year... Great Fortune Will Come to All Under Heaven."
With those final words, Zhang Bao mounted his horse and rode out to battle.
After watching his retreating form, Zhang Jiao leaned heavily on his staff, barely managing to rise to his feet.
"O Heaven... this unworthy Zhang Jiao beseeches you once more. I beg you, grant me once again... the power to change all under heaven! The strength to save the people from this abyss of suffering!"
Shaking his bell and staff, Zhang Jiao cried out.
At the same moment, agony began to surge through him.
Amidst anguish that felt as though his entire body were being burned alive, Zhang Jiao raised his voice and screamed.
The result of wielding the esoteric arts twice in succession: a body already pushed to its absolute limit.
Yet still, like a terminal lucidity—the final flare of a dying flame—he meant to burn one last time.
Forcing his collapsing body upright, Zhang Jiao continued to chant, blood streaming from his eyes and nose.
Words that embodied the great cause of the Yellow Turbans.
The incantation of that esoteric art which could blanket this world in a yellow sky...
"The Azure Heaven Is Dead! The Yellow Heaven Shall Rise! In the Jiazi Year! Under Heaven— Kheuheo-eo-eo-eok!!!!"
At that very moment, a sharp arrow sliced through the air.
From Zhang Jiao's mouth, which had been raised in fervent invocation, a terrible scream erupted instead.
"Wh... what?"
"!! Wha... what is—?"
The Yellow Turban Army began to reel in shock at the unforeseen turn of events.
In their eyes, a tall woman mounted on a red horse and holding a bow was visible.
"Y... you... bitch... dar..."
Consumed by shock and agony, Zhang Jiao stared at her.
His expression twisted into a mask of pure hatred. He tried to swing the staff he still clutched in his hand.
His life was already forfeit anyway.
At the very least, he would drag that filthy wench who had thwarted the great cause down to hell with him.
But...
-Syu-uk!!!
Before he could even act, the woman loosed a second arrow with blinding speed.
The result.
"Keu...!!!"
The arrow punched clean through the crown of Zhang Jiao's head.
It emptied his skull of all thought—including that final blaze of vengeance.
"Th... this is—!"
"Gr... Great and Worthy Teacher!"
Zhang Jiao collapsed and perished instantly, not even given a chance to react.
A moment later, the woman on the red horse...
Dong Zhuo drew her sword and shouted in a piercing voice.
"Sweep them all away! Slaughter every last Yellow Turban dog!"
At her command, government troops began surging in from the flank.
While the cavalry led by Ji Ling had been drawing the enemy's full attention at the front, this force had circled around by side paths to approach as stealthily as possible.
As a bonus, the chaos caused by the raging sandstorm and lightning at the front had actually worked in their favor.
With the Yellow Turbans thrown into confusion after losing their leader, the government soldiers began cutting them down indiscriminately.
Despite their numerical disadvantage, Dong Zhuo's forces tore the Yellow Turbans to shreds like a sword cleaving through solid rock.
As she watched that scene unfold, Dong Zhuo hardened a resolve she had been mulling over for some time into an absolute certainty.
The enemies who, just yesterday, had seemed so insurmountable while wielding the very forces of heaven were now being swept away so helplessly before her.
As if... even heaven itself could not stand in the path of that man...
the man who had planned all of this.
'I can't afford to dither any longer. If I miss this chance now, then perhaps...'
She had still felt some measure of composure up until recently, but upon seeing the new arrivals in red and silver dispatched from the capital, her thinking had changed.
Though she currently held the advantage in command by a stroke of luck, each of those women possessed formidable ability and backing.
What was more, they even had the advantage of time spent together: unlike her, who was only at his side for state affairs, those two were essentially close neighbors, practically family.
Both the circumstances of their meetings and the time they could share were vastly different.
And so, realizing that she was truly running out of time, Dong Zhuo hardened her resolve and began cutting the head from the corpse before her.
'For conveying your heart... surely a gift of this caliber will suffice?'
Dong Zhuo's face flushed with a pounding heart.
It was a feeling she was experiencing for the very first time in her life—much like a youthful maiden pouring her heart into each and every character as she wrote a letter with a shy, blushing face.
A smile that crept unbidden onto her lips, and cheeks tinted the color of a peach blossom.
That... was the innocent sentiment of the woman who, in this very moment, was smearing her face with crimson blood instead of black ink as she severed the head of the one million Yellow Turbans' commander.
It was summer.