The Figure Later Called the Hegemon-King
The Figure Later Called the Hegemon-King
Liu Bei, her voice calm, requested permission to take the field.
I couldn't help but be taken aback.
In the Original Timeline, Liu Bei was an outstanding leader, but his personal martial prowess on the battlefield was nothing remarkable.
Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were the untouchable combat monsters; Liu Bei was the one giving orders or getting her ass handed to her and bolting as a matter of routine.
Granted, in the modern era, where every wild theory imaginable gets tossed around, some people would insist that Liu Bei was actually monstrously strong and simply never got proper depiction because of her cultivated image.
The so-called Liu Bei Overlord Theory.
The idea that she could keep Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in line by physically overwhelming them, like a true eldest sister—or brother—should.
In the Romance itself, Liu Bei wielded the Twin Ancient Swords and is said to have employed the Mounted Dual Sword Technique at will. Considering how demanding that martial art is, her ability was probably above average.
This was an era in which the stirrups that would later become standard had not yet been properly developed.
The stirrups as we know them only began to appear in earnest after the Three Kingdoms era ended and the Western Jin Dynasty took over.
That means using dual swords right now effectively requires fixing yourself to the horse purely through leg strength.
And even putting the Mounted Dual Sword Technique aside,
Liu Bei lost a whole lot of battles, yet the woman herself was never once captured or seriously wounded.
You could take that as a strong hint that her combat ability was anything but ordinary.
But that's all just a fanciful theory people trot out for a laugh.
The Liu Bei Overlord Theory, the same way the Liu Bei Elf Theory was nothing more than a comedy bit to me—or so I thought... until I looked around and realized that in this world Liu Bei really is an elf?
And in this moment, with Liu Bei volunteering to step forward herself, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei behind her weren't making the slightest gesture to stop her. They were watching like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Even at a glance, their expressions practically radiated trust in their eldest sister.
The look on their faces seemed to say a small fry like that ought to be taken care of by their eldest. Apart from whatever common sense—or what I'd thought was common sense—I'd held until now, a strange new belief was starting to take root.
Just then.
"She has spoken this plainly. Perhaps you might give her a chance, Gonglu?"
"Mm..."
Dong Zhuo gave her advice in a quiet tone.
After a moment, I slowly nodded.
For one thing, I had to consider their standing,
and more to the point, if things got genuinely dangerous, wouldn't Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, who were standing by, jump in to help?
Having made up my mind, I looked at Liu Bei and issued the order.
"Very well. Take the field. But do not overdo it."
"Understood. Then I shall go, General Yuan."
Liu Bei answered brimming with confidence.
Feeling a swell of curiosity about the substance behind that confidence, I watched the backs of the Three Sisters as they rode past the camp perimeter.
And then.
"Ji Ling. Get the troops ready... prioritize the fast cavalry."
"Huh? Ah... got it. But why?"
"Because... we might end up needing them."
*
"Be careful, sis. I saw it earlier—that Zhang Liao is definitely not normal."
"The martial prowess I gauged is extraordinary. She might be on a level with me, or with Zhang Fei."
"Don't worry. I've seen her skills clearly as well."
Liu Bei answered her sisters with a calm smile.
It was true that the martial prowess of the one called Zhang Liao was no ordinary thing, even in her eyes.
She had swatted down a whole string of officers who were supposed to be seasoned warriors and had shown not a trace of fatigue,
and her handling of the Twin Halberds was anything but average.
In one sense, although Liu Bei had never witnessed the skill of Lü Bu, the so-called Unmatched Under Heaven,
seeing how even a warrior of Zhang Liao's caliber was eclipsed by Lü Bu's shadow gave her at least a rough inkling of what that woman might be capable of.
And yet Liu Bei advanced without a single tremor of hesitation.
An enemy's strength meant that defeating her would win a proportionally greater name.
More than anything, because this was the first battle she and her sisters were taking part in, it carried weight unlike any other.
Showing something unmistakable here would determine how she and her younger sisters would be treated among the other lords from now on.
'Though there's one person who isn't like the rest, I suppose...'
Amid all that, a single figure suddenly crossed Liu Bei's mind.
Their connection in the past might have been brief, but
this man had gone so far as to send a letter extending an invitation to her, who was still no more than a County Magistrate,
and when she arrived here, he had welcomed and entertained her as if he'd been waiting.
Yuan Shu.
He was a man who possessed a magnanimity and an eye for people that were singular—just as one would expect from a scion of the renowned Yuan Clan—
and alone among the others, who all cast openly unfavorable glances, he had sent her and her sisters a gaze that had been filled from start to finish with trust.
Feeling she had to give her very best to meet his expectations,
Liu Bei began to close rapidly on the brown-haired woman standing across from her.
Zhang Liao.
*
"Heh heh, this is turning out exactly as I predicted. Nothing but Disorganized Rabble."
Zhang Liao laughed in good humor, shaking the blood from her Twin Halberds.
As she glanced over the three officers who had been reduced to corpses in an instant by her hand, she was in fact enjoying a sharp flutter of excitement and anticipation.
This was the coalition army of lords who were supposedly known throughout the land.
Having just killed three officers sent out as their champions, people would now have at least some idea of who Zhang Liao truly was.
All that remained was for those demoralized fools, their morale at rock bottom, to attempt a reckless attack—and she would counter-charge and rip the spirit right out of them.
If in the process she could take the head of a lord or two, would there be anyone left under heaven who did not know the name Zhang Liao?
'Lords, hmm... Now that I think about it, their coalition leader was that man, Yuan Shu? His face was just my type, really handsome... It might not be such a bad idea to try for that man while I'm at it?'
Seizing their leader would collapse the coalition on the spot, making it a strategically sound choice, but Zhang Liao didn't give that any serious thought.
Her reason for wanting to capture Yuan Shu was partly his name value, but more than that, it was his good-looking face—a direct hit on her personal taste.
A face that had made her, who had never cared about men, feel a quickening heartbeat the very instant she saw it. A face that went further and made her think she wanted him.
'General Ding Yuan did say that if I win the battle, he'll grant me one wish—anything at all. In that case...'
With a deep smile settling on her lips, Zhang Liao was just about to turn back and reorganize her troops.
It was then...
"Hm? What's this? One more joining the party?"
A female officer was rushing toward her.
The moment she took in those conspicuous long ears, the obnoxiously large chest,
the black hair, the red eyes, and the twin swords drawn as she approached—Zhang Liao began to feel an odd, instinctive sensation at the back of her neck.
'This one... Something about her feels deeply wrong...'
It was a feeling fundamentally different from the small fry she'd faced so far.
Feeling real tension for the first time, Zhang Liao shouted in a level, serious voice.
"Who are you? Give me your name!"
"My name is Liu Bei. By order of General Yuan Shu, I have come to put you down, Zhang Liao."
"Haha, you'll put me down? Fine—go ahead and try."
Apart from the tension coiling inside her, Zhang Liao's words were full of bravado.
Immediately afterward, she swung her Twin Halberds and spurred her horse into a charge straight at Liu Bei.
-Whoosh!
The Twin Halberds swept in with blistering speed.
The same attack that the previous three had failed even to react to, dying on the spot, came hurtling down over the head of this woman who called herself Liu Bei.
But...
-Clang!
"!"
Liu Bei blocked the strike with ease.
At a glance, you might call it a simple successful defense, but...
Zhang Liao's eyes began to fill with sheer shock.
'Wha... What? Sh-She blocked it? And... with one hand?'
Liu Bei had extended a single sword from her right hand and halted Zhang Liao's attack dead in its tracks.
The sensation was like striking solid rock, and a sudden chill went running down Zhang Liao's spine.
"Hk!"
In that instant, Liu Bei's other hand swung a sword directly at Zhang Liao's flank.
Zhang Liao threw herself into a rough twist on horseback and succeeded in barely evading the blow.
The movement itself came close to a miracle of body control, but the woman executing it was now in a situation where cold sweat was pouring down her back.
As the attacks continued without pause, Zhang Liao frantically swung her Twin Halberds to fend them off.
'Damn it! Where did someone like this come from...!'
No one but Lü Bu had ever pushed her this far.
She wasn't quite on that level, but this Liu Bei was without question a mighty warrior as well.
'This isn't good. For now, I need to...'
The sharp attacks kept flying at her.
Barely managing to fend them off, Zhang Liao delivered a mighty swing of her Twin Halberds and succeeded in shoving Liu Bei back.
Immediately afterward, she kicked her horse forward and opened the distance.
Although neither of them had taken any visible wound,
even if she was physically unscathed, in this moment a sizeable wound was left in Zhang Liao's pride.
'Insane... Is that woman's chest made of nothing but muscle? Where does that strength even come from?'
Liu Bei hadn't just calmly blocked a blow that had Zhang Liao's full strength behind it with one hand; she'd come within a hair of leaving a wound on her flank as well.
The dazzling dual-sword technique that followed forced Zhang Liao to operate solely on defense for a stretch.
It might have been simply executing attack and defense simultaneously, but the problem was that she'd done them separately using two swords.
Zhang Liao understood better than anyone how difficult that was.
Didn't it essentially mean that the strength of one of Liu Bei's arms matched the strength of both of hers combined?
Her opponent was freakishly strong. Realizing she could be reduced to minced meat with a single misstep, Zhang Liao decided to change her approach.
"Haaaaat!!!"
"..."
From a set distance, Zhang Liao began thrusting the Twin Halberds at high speed.
Unlike before, her attacks, concentrated on sheer velocity, now poured out in rapid succession, all centered on Liu Bei's ample chest.
-Clang!
"..."
Zhang Liao used the superior reach of her Twin Halberds to keep up an unrelenting offense, while Liu Bei deflected the blows with an expressionless face.
Given the nature of their weapons, this distance was overwhelmingly favorable to Zhang Liao.
And confident as she was in her speed, no matter how monstrously strong this woman might be, there was no way she could keep blocking everything forever.
As the exchanges continued and Liu Bei did nothing but defend, Zhang Liao, concentrating single-mindedly on keeping the distance, felt a faint smile creep onto her lips.
'Good. At this rate...!'
The force with which Liu Bei deflected her blows was fierce, but that still didn't solve the fundamental problem of reach.
You can swing your sword all you want, but if your arm can't reach, what are you going to do?
On top of that, Zhang Liao's horse was a top-grade Blood-Sweating Horse she'd brought from Bing Province.
Meanwhile, that long-eared, big-titted bitch's martial prowess might have been awe-inspiring, but the horse she was riding was an utterly wretched nag—well below average.
Even if Liu Bei wanted to close the gap, the performance difference between their mounts made that fundamentally impossible.
Victory beginning to feel certain, Zhang Liao once again thrust her Twin Halberds toward that infuriating chest.
But...
-Whoosh!
"!!"
In a single instant, Liu Bei evaded Zhang Liao's thrust and, in the same breath, hurled the sword in her hand straight at her.
Faced with a blow she hadn't even conceived of, Zhang Liao had no choice but to reflexively twist her upper body violently aside to dodge.
Just then.
-Thuck!
"Gah!!!"
A strike bored sharply into her shoulder in an eyeblink.
The searing pain that followed, along with the red blood gushing out, twisted Zhang Liao's face into a grimace.
"Damn it!"
With that massive wound, victory and defeat had essentially been decided.
Zhang Liao had no choice but to spur her horse furiously and flee.
Meanwhile.
Watching Zhang Liao retreat, Liu Bei spoke to Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, who arrived at her side a moment later.
"Let's go after her, Eldest Sister!"
"We can't. On this horse, catching up to her right now is out of the question. More importantly—the orders I left with you?"
"Preparations are complete. All three hundred soldiers under our command await the order."
"Then let's move. Second Sister, Third Sister—with the enemy's momentum broken, this is our moment!"
"Yeah! Let's go wild out there!"
"All troops, advance!"
At Guan Yu's command, the soldiers mounted their horses and began their charge.
With Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei at the head, they plunged straight into the enemy camp, which had been thrown into chaos by Zhang Liao's rout.