Chapter 43

Translator: Willia

From the outside, at least, it was certainly a splendid and imposing sight. The mighty Eldeira Ducal Army, that was. The banners representing each house snapped proudly in the wind, and the soldiers were well armed.

Some of the knights had no need to wear their helmets yet, but perhaps to raise morale, they wore them anyway, complete with ornamental crests.

Before departing, the soldiers each took a moment to embrace their wives and children.

The children looked proud of their fathers as they marched off to war in full armor, while the wives' faces were filled with worry and sorrow.

All they could do was believe their husbands' promise that they would return and wait for them. If there was one blessing amid the misfortune, it was that the battlefield was not very far away.

The long column of soldiers marched west. The army would skirt the wetlands, head north, and then turn east again.

The vanguard was led by the Count of Winddale, the center by the Ducal Army under Gunnar, the Duke's Eldest Son, and the rear guard by the Count of Winsloe.

As they had agreed beforehand, Duke Sven would take the very rear and guard the supply line.

After they had marched for some time, the grass covering the fields gradually thinned until they reached a place where rock was more abundant than vegetation. From that point onward, the path grew narrow and uneven, making it difficult for wagons to pass.

Donkeys and packhorses alone were not enough to pull them through. Several men had to push from behind, and if a wheel broke, it became a serious problem. The wagon had to be repaired first, while men shouldered its cargo in the meantime.

Apprentice Knights rode tirelessly up and down the column, relaying information between the front and rear. They carried orders to slow down because the wagons could not keep up, along with reports of anything unusual ahead.

An army on the march was vulnerable by nature, so this was another nerve-racking part of the journey.

Sometime after noon, they sent out scouts to find a suitable place for the army to camp.

There was nowhere in the rugged, rocky terrain where the entire army could gather and make camp together. All they could do was huddle as close together as possible, pitch tents to block the wind, and sleep beneath blankets.

Then, just as they had feared, someone appeared off to their flank. At first there was only one man, so they were not quite sure what to make of him.

Judging by his clothing, he was from Denbria. He was a man wearing something like a skirt, with rough leather draped over him that looked only half-tanned. He seemed to stand somewhere between a civilized man and a Barbarian.

His long hair was red, and so was his beard, which hung nearly as long as his hair. The enormous greatsword slung over his shoulder, black hilt and all, looked almost as tall as a man. He was a Highlander.

He was holding something in one hand, and he casually hurled it toward the marching army.

It bounced and rolled down the sloping rocks before coming to a stop. It was a human head, belonging to one of the men they had sent ahead to find a campsite.

“Fuck......”

“Barbarian bastards.”

The soldiers muttered in disgust.

Then the Highlander standing proudly above them shouted down at the Ducal Army.

“Who gave you permission to set foot on this land!”

Duke Sven had seen him as well, so for the sake of morale, he rode his horse toward where the man stood.

“I am Sven, Duke of Eldeira! Who are you!”

“I am the King of Denbria! Dunkad, heir of Alpin! Not even Sigmund, scion of House Vǫlsungr, set foot upon this land, so how dare the likes of you trespass here!”

Within Denbria, its ruler styled himself King. The reason this was possible was that the terrain was so harsh that Denbria had never actually been conquered.

The only reason Dunkad had become a Marquis at all was that he had accepted the title without knowing what it meant, thinking it was simply a token of friendship.

Strictly speaking, the kingdom and Denbria merely observed mutual nonaggression. They were not bound by a liege-vassal relationship.

“You red-haired ape! Did you think I wouldn't know that you backed the Third Young Lord and murdered the Second Young Lord to put him in power!”

Duke Sven shouted the accusation with confidence. To be fair, judging by appearances alone, Dunkad hardly looked like the sort of man who would concoct such a scheme.

From the Marquis's perspective, it was an accusation he had every reason to find unfair, but true to his appearance, he offered no excuses.

He simply stared down at Duke Sven for a moment before speaking.

“Shut your yap and get up here. Let's fight.”

As he spoke, men began appearing one after another beside Dunkad. There were not many of them, but the sight was still rather overwhelming. They were all tall and heavily built, dressed much the same way: skirts, leather, and greatswords.

Then the wind blew and flipped their skirts up a little, exposing what was underneath. They were not wearing anything beneath them.

It was rather unpleasant for the men looking up from below, but the Highlanders showed not the slightest embarrassment. If anything, they stood there proudly. What was the big deal about one man seeing another man's junk?

“If you're so confident, you come down here!”

Duke Sven shouted back, refusing to yield.

“If you haven't even got the guts to come up here, then what the hell did you come for!? You son of a bitch with no pedigree!”

“The one without a pedigree is a Barbarian like you! Come down here!”

“Come up!”

“Come down!”

It looked rather childish, but this was not yet a world with highly developed rules of etiquette. The Ducal Army might have viewed the Highlanders as little better than Barbarians, but in truth, they were hardly any less barbaric themselves.

In any case, with one side shouting for the other to come up and the other shouting for them to come down, the situation showed no sign of progressing. Yet the Ducal Army could not simply ignore them and keep marching either, so they were effectively pinned in place.

Then someone stepped forward like a hero. Carrying a shield and sword, he began scrambling up the rugged rocks, heading straight toward the Marquis. It was Gunnar, Duke Sven's Eldest Son.

“Fine! I'll come up there!”

“Young Lord!”

The nearby knights cried out in alarm and hurried after him. There were fewer than ten of them.

Whether in battle or a one-on-one duel, the man on higher ground had the advantage. Sure enough, Marquis Dunkad swung his enormous greatsword down at Gunnar just as he was nearly within reach.

It was a heavy blow, but Gunnar caught it squarely on his shield, shoved it aside with brute force, and thrust his sword forward. Dunkad was no ordinary fighter either, and he dodged the attack.

Once they closed the distance, both men abandoned their weapons and began grappling, clawing, shoving, and dragging at each other in a contest of raw strength.

But Gunnar had been born exceptionally strong. The older Dunkad could not withstand him and was sent sprawling.

Gunnar had a chance to finish him while he was down, but there was no chance the Marquis's men would simply stand by and watch. The knights were already fighting to hold them back, and casualties had begun to mount among them.

The other soldiers and knights watching from below hesitated, unsure whether they should join the fight. At the same time, though, it was an entertaining and thrilling spectacle that set their blood pumping.

“Hey, ptooey! You Barbarian bastard! Now you try coming up here!”

Gunnar spat at the Marquis, took the place where Dunkad had originally stood, and shouted confidently. But the knights grabbed him and practically dragged him back down, leaving him no chance to continue fighting.

The ten knights fought desperately to hold off the Highlanders while several others practically carried Gunnar back down the slope.

It had been quite a savage fight. The Highlanders had fought ferociously as well, but they never came all the way down.

“Hey, you assholes! Come down here!”

“Barbarian bastards!”

The soldiers, their spirits restored, hurled curses at the Highlanders.

For the moment, the Highlanders hoisted Dunkad up and withdrew. Whether he was badly injured or not was unclear, but with their King hurt, they had little choice but to retreat.

“Let go of me! Let go! I could've killed him!”

Gunnar shook off the knights and fumed. Even a fool had something he was good at, and no one could deny his courage or extraordinary strength.

Then Duke Sven approached and abruptly slapped him across the face.

Smack!

Gunnar flinched in shock, completely dumbfounded as he blinked at his father.

“You idiot! Two knights were wounded because of you! How many times have I told you? Even if you have to sacrifice a hundred soldiers, you protect a single knight!”

What he said was not entirely wrong, but this was still a bit much.

First, their advance had been stalled and they had needed a way out of the situation. There had been some losses, but Gunnar had broken the deadlock.

Second, Sven should not have humiliated him so publicly. Gunnar was the Supreme Commander of the campaign to capture Grinnen, after all.

Gunnar had expected praise, only to be slapped instead. Tears welled in his eyes from disappointment and hurt.

“You moron. Are you planning to cry in front of the soldiers?”

At the further scolding, Gunnar said nothing to his father. He covered his eyes with one hand and abruptly stalked away.

The mood among the soldiers and knights nearby turned funereal. Two knights had been wounded, yes, but watching their Supreme Commander charge up the slope at the head of the attack had gotten their blood pumping.

“I'll handle the supply line. Continue the march.”

Duke Sven gave the order.

The army reluctantly resumed marching, but their spirits had been rising only to be abruptly crushed, leaving an unpleasant feeling behind.

In any case, they continued according to the original plan, marching slowly while driving stakes into the ground along the roadside. Yet Highlanders kept appearing at all hours to harass them.

Because their marching formation stretched into a long column, the army could not properly form ranks. Whenever they were attacked, only the troops nearest the point of assault could fight back, which made the Highlanders difficult to deal with despite their small numbers. Like clothes slowly soaking through in a fine drizzle, their casualties steadily mounted.

Compared with the size of the entire army, the losses were minor. From the soldiers' perspective, however, it was exhausting and deeply stressful. They could not sleep properly, and even meals had to be eaten while constantly on edge.

With those losses steadily accumulating, they crawled onward for more than a week before finally reaching flat ground. In the far distance, Grinnen came into view.

But contrary to what they had been told, its walls were not a palisade. They were made of stone.

“What the hell is that......”

Someone muttered in a drained voice, too dumbfounded to muster anything more. The words expressed what everyone was feeling. They had made it sound as though the city would fall the moment they arrived, but that clearly was not the case......

Grinnen's walls filled the Ducal Army with despair, but from Valery's perspective, the defenses still left much to be desired.

To build a proper wall, sand and stones needed to be carefully packed inside before another outer wall was built around them. There had been no time for that, so the process had been skipped. If the enemy started pulling out the foundation stones or digging beneath the wall, it could collapse quickly.

And one of the most important things in any defensive battle was whether there was a moat. Moats were what made castles and cities so difficult to take in the first place, but there had not been enough time to dig one properly, so theirs was narrow and shallow.

At its current depth, it was only enough to keep the enemy from comfortably setting up ladders. If they committed enough manpower to filling in the moat, it would not take long.

On the other hand, they had plenty of arrows, and fortunately, food supplies continued to arrive through the waterway to the northeast.

Of course, the Ducal Army was being plagued by Highlander attacks as well, so they could not focus entirely on the siege. Both sides had their shortages and hardships, as things so often did in the world.

Grinnen had scraped together around eighty troops. Of those, only about twenty were properly armed.

From atop the walls, the soldiers could see the enemy appearing in the distance, and their spirits were already beginning to sink.

It was understandable. They were not facing some random crowd of people. Every single one of them was an armed, able-bodied man, and there seemed to be swarms of them.

Valery gathered all the city's soldiers and stood atop the wall beside a fluttering banner emblazoned with a frog, then launched into a speech.

Not only the soldiers, but everyone listened. The women preparing meals for the troops, the elderly who were too old to fight but carried stones for repairing the walls, even the children ferrying arrows.

Valery slowly swept his gaze across them as though taking in every single face, then shouted.

“All of you, listen carefully! As long as this flag does not fall, we win! If even one man remains to protect this flag until the very end, this city survives! Will you let the enemy conquer you and go back to living miserable lives like slaves, or will you keep living as human beings as you do now! Anyone who wants to live as a slave, surrender your weapon and leave right now! Anyone who stays, I'll take it to mean you'd rather die than live like a slave! We will win! We will win no matter what! If you can't believe in yourselves, then believe in me! I'll fight beside you! Fight bravely!”

The moment Valery finished speaking, he drove the flagpole hard into the top of the wall.

In the extraordinary circumstances of war, hearing such a confident speech from the renowned Valery naturally set the young men's blood stirring.

“Let's fight! Let's fight!”

The soldiers raised their swords, spears, and bows as they shouted, and even the women and children, ordinary civilians though they were, joined in at the tops of their voices.

Arne and Skard had already known it, but once again they found themselves thinking that Valery really was impressive, and they joined the chant of “Let's fight!” Yorik shouted more passionately than anyone. Knut merely applauded.

Their combined cries were loud enough to carry beyond the walls and reach the Ducal Army in the distance.

As he watched everyone shout themselves hoarse, Valery felt his own heart pounding. It felt as though all their desperate hopes were gathering around him.

He had originally come to this city for another purpose, but after four months here, both his thoughts and feelings seemed to have changed.

Just as he had regained his smile in Winsloe, the people of Grinnen had gradually begun to smile again as well. Whenever he saw hope for life returning to their eyes, Valery felt as though they were the ones giving him strength instead.

He had grown up without parents, always watching himself around others and never truly loved. Before regression, he had resented the world and his bloodline.

But now, did someone like me really deserve the expectations, hopes, and trust of so many people?

He had once lived believing that everyone in the world simply used one another, so he would do the same. But not anymore.

At the very least, I can't betray them. The world may have betrayed me, but I won't betray these people. Just watch. We'll win. No matter what. The vow arose naturally within him.

From Valery's experience, if he judged their chances coldly, this was closer to a reckless fight than anything else.

But even if he died fighting, even if he failed to defend Grinnen in the end, would that not still be worth more than merely putting a blade to his own throat and dying?

That was what he thought.