WeTried Translations x Flame Comics

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 143: The Rebellion of the Three Counts (3)

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* * *

By determining his bearings from the distance traveled and the surrounding terrain, then checking them against the sunrise, sunset, constellations, and so on, he could pinpoint his current location with reasonable accuracy.

Even if the map had a considerable margin of error, it was still a military map. Its scale might have been imperfect, but it held the greatest amount of information that could be marked on paper.

Ivan could therefore calculate both his current position and the maximum distance the Tauruses could advance within two days.

Ten villages lay within their range of advance, radiating out from their infiltration route. Five of them had likely already been plundered.

‘Vertomang must have fallen.’

This was not the sort of raid a local lord far from the front could handle without prior preparation.

Ivan walked through the burned-out village.

-Crack. Crunch.

He stepped on a charred corpse at his feet. A cleanly stripped shinbone, large enough to have belonged to an adult woman.

A long shadow stretched over him. Something blocking the setting sun was staring down at him. Ivan turned his head.

There was a mound of bones.

‘Were they Tumor’s personal guard infantry?’

The footprints surrounding it belonged to adult Tauruses. Among Tauruses and orcs, the only ones who did something so inefficient with their food were Tumor’s infantry.

Other demonfolk, such as necromancers and demons, occasionally did such things for magical rituals. Tauruses did not.

Those idiots saw humans as food.

Which was why this behavior, piling up corpses before setting them alight and twisting some into grotesque shapes to hang from poles, was abnormal. It was a sacrifice for Tumor.

‘A high-ranking demonfolk capable of presiding over a ritual is leading them.’

He had to raise their threat level by a step. This was a raid by an elite force of at least a thousand led by a soldier of centurion rank or higher.

Passing through a village without survivors, Ivan unfolded the map in his mind again.

Red dots beginning in the Vernini Mountains were spreading outward in every direction, like the Black Death poisoning the green plains.

‘Moramdon, Redmieux, and Demontmor could still be considered safe territory.’

He stretched his legs and chewed down a Nutrient Bar. As he pictured the fiefs still in the early stages of invasion, he considered where any surviving refugees would flee.

Moramdon, the closest, was a small fief of perhaps four villages. Redmieux at least had a fortified stronghold. The broad plains stretching beyond Demontmor had no suitable defensive line.

If they had to endure a pitched battle against the demonfolk army, their forces would need to at least match the enemy in number. Tauruses were no less mobile than cavalry.

Then...

‘Moramdon alone won’t be enough. At least four fiefs need to gather.’

Without Ivan, it would take at least four small local fiefs the size of Vertomang to stop the current Taurus force using only troops from nearby territories.

Once those fiefs gathered and secured the minimum military strength, what would the Grand Counts attempt before the lords assembled to stop the demonfolk?

‘If they gather under Etakrikh’s name and keep the Grand Counts in check...’

Guillaume’s plan to head for Saint Matilene, revered as a hero who had saved the nation, would collapse. He would repel the demonfolk himself, marshal the gathered lords’ forces, then march on Saint Matilene in its hour of crisis.

At that point, the only thing Guillaume could do was block those lords with his own forces. His performance would be over. From that moment onward, he would be nothing but a rebel.

Justification mattered that much in noble politics.

If Guillaume, stripped of his justification, attempted a battle, it would be his last.

Picking apart scattered forces one by one took time and effort.

But cutting off the enemy’s command within a mass of gathered troops was familiar work. Surely Guillaume’s camp could not be more dangerous than a Seven Dragon General’s lair.

Ivan clicked his tongue and loosened up. The moment he felt the Nutrient Bar settle in his stomach, he kicked off the ground and began to run.

* * *

On the day after the Tauruses’ raid began, Vertomang, a small fief made up of several slash-and-burn settlements and a handful of trading villages, fell before half the day had passed.

Only a few survivors, including its lord, Baron de Noar, barely escaped Vertomang. A few household members, five knights, and barely fifty of the fief’s people.

“Where in the world... What in the world is happening...?”

“Isn’t there word that the Grand Duke of Etakrikh has personally taken the field in the Vernini Mountains? If you wish to request aid, perhaps we should head there...”

“What good would it do if only we rushed there?!”

Baron de Noar barked at his squire, then immediately regretted it. The squire was one of the few retainers who had remained at his side. That alone deserved proper treatment, especially now, when the fief had been burned to ash.

The baron drew a deep breath and looked around.

A few family members, five knights, and barely fifty refugees. That was all. It meant that the thousand or so people of his fief had gone straight into the demonfolk’s jaws.

They would not all be dead. Only one day had passed.

Still, Baron de Noar hoped they were. Being alive beneath the demonfolk army without protection would be worse than death.

“Lord.”

He made the sign of the cross and continued.

“We will seek shelter in Moramdon, then request aid from the Grand Duke of Etakrikh and Saint Matilene. If we alone flee now, who will protect them?”

“Your Excellency, but leading the refugees as you retreat will take time...”

“You would have me abandon my people to buy time and flee? Then what? Could we still call ourselves nobles? Do you truly think so?”

Would a rural lord who had lost both people and fief, and held no post as an administrative noble, have any future? No. The House of Nobles in Saint Matilene would distribute the reconquered territory to other nobles, then discard him.

The stated reason would be that he had abandoned his duty as a noble, but...

The baron clenched his teeth and shook his head. Could he endure such a future? Even if he lived only one more day, he had to live as a noble and die as one. That was how his house would survive.

“If we leave the road, we can delay their pursuit as much as possible. They will not be familiar with this land.”

“But they will catch us eventually.”

“Even in this state, we can buy a few hours. I will hold them long enough for you to enter Moramdon’s territory. Look after my family.”

He had not even brought his armor, nor did he possess proper equipment. He wore only a light tunic and carried a longsword, a shabby figure.

Yet he was a noble who had survived the last war. A knight who had faced Tumor’s front lines and lived. He had endured from before the Hero Party appeared until now.

Could he really say peace had softened him when so little time had passed? He still considered himself active.

He looked over the few knights. All of them were veterans who had ridden through the same campaigns alongside him. Even if they had reached the twilight of their lives, they still remembered war.

“Come now, even if we only live one more day, should we not live as nobles?”

“If possible, I’d like to live as a noble for another year or so, Your Excellency.”

“Then you had better work harder.”

When the baron snorted, the knights broke into boisterous laughter. The six old men, ragged as they were, raised their weapons and headed for the rear of the refugee column.

“We will buy time here. Once we do, leave the road and do not stop until you reach Moramdon. Warn Baron Serthe of Moramdon, and ask the nearby fiefs to issue a call to arms.”

“But will those people listen to us? We’ll be fortunate if they do not simply stand by and watch!”

“Then this country will fall to a mere band of demonfolk.”

The baron laughed bitterly. Where had all the men gone who had fought a demonfolk legion over a hundred thousand strong and defended their homeland? How could the interior be raided by such a small force?

Had the Eastern Front collapsed? Without even time to send a messenger? Was the nation truly finished, then?

The great lords nearby could probably stop the demonfolk who had raided his fief with ease. Yet the failure to contain them early, the fact that they had pushed this far inland, and that no one had noticed from the Eastern Front to this distant land...

What state were the fiefs beyond the Vernini Mountains in? If these were only the vanguard, if the legions on the Eastern Front had fallen, what would become of the nation?

Despair pressed heavily upon him. The knights who had served in the same campaigns likely understood the same thing.

“It’s too early to give up.”

An unfamiliar voice came from beyond the brush. The knights immediately raised their swords and took their stances.

Any stranger was a threat, especially in a vulnerable situation like this.

A man soon emerged from the bushes. He was as ragged as they were, his clothes torn as though branches had ripped through them. Bloodstains covered his body, as though he had been soaked through and only barely dried.

He looked no different from a bandit. Baron de Noar narrowed his eyes and spoke.

“Who are you? We are not in a position to receive visitors.”

“Ivan Petrovich Yermof.”

The man roughly brushed leaves from himself and stepped onto the road. He carried a heavy cloak bundle, hastily tied together.

Ignoring the sticky blood seeping from it, the baron growled.

“That is not a name from these lands. What business does a noble of Krasilov have here?”

“To kill demonfolk.”

Ivan’s voice was flat. He sounded less like a man carrying out some grand mission and more like someone who had come to finish work he had always done.

“How did you know of this and appear alone at such a timely moment?”

“Do you have time?”

“What?”

“I asked whether you have time to be suspicious, demand proof, and wait until you are convinced. You look rather pressed.”

“That does not mean we have reason to heed the words of an uninvited guest.”

“It is a message from the Duke of Etakrikh.”

Ivan tossed the cloak bundle before the baron.

The knights were about to react sharply to his rudeness, but froze when they saw what lay inside as the cloak rolled open across the ground.

Five severed Taurus heads. Massive bovine heads with their tongues lolling out, still wet with blood that had not yet dried.

Their sharp fangs belonged to carnivores. The knights who had fought in the war did not doubt what they were seeing for a moment.

“Baron, your call to arms may not persuade the nearby lords. The word of the Duke of Etakrikh will.”

“Proof... There is no proof to persuade those nobles. No proof that this is truly the Duke of Etakrikh’s word.”

“Stake your neck. If it is a lie, accept execution for forging the duke’s command.”

“What?!”

“Do you have anything left to lose?”

Ivan swept his gaze over the people of the fief, then looked back at the baron.

“Whether the nearby lords gather and stop the demonfolk, or you are driven back and ruined as you are now, you have nothing more to lose either way.”

“Is the Grand Duke’s name not too exalted for you to guarantee it with a few words?”

“I do not guarantee it.”

Ivan dropped his bloodstained sword. Its edge was chipped and worn. He had grabbed the first weapon he saw, and this was the result. As expected, one should use weapons that had been properly maintained.

“I will prove it instead. Do not stake your lives here to buy time. Even staking your lives somewhere more important would scarcely be enough. Spread the Duke of Etakrikh’s message to every nearby fief. The duke is still fighting in the Vernini Mountains at this very moment.”

“So the front has truly been pushed back as far as Vernini...!”

“Leave now. Gather an army under the Grand Duke’s name, then return. Enough to establish Moramdon as the front line within five days.”

Ivan took a sword from the foremost knight and turned away. The knight who had handed it over without thinking stared blankly at his own hand.

Ivan had taken it before he could react. He had not even noticed Ivan’s approaching hand. That alone revealed the other man’s skill, and the knight watched Ivan’s back with a somewhat intimidated expression.

Inspecting the sword once, Ivan spoke quietly.

“You maintained it well.”

“It is still an age when there is much use for it.”

“Excellent.”

At Ivan’s words, the knight suddenly asked,

“Do you have a reason to risk your life? You are from Krasilov.”

“Do demonfolk distinguish humans by nationality?”

Ivan snorted and tied the sword at his waist.

“Or did your nation’s Hero save people according to their nationality?”

“You speak as though you were a Hero yourself.”

“I am not qualified for that.”

But I can play along.

Ivan swallowed the rest of the thought. He remembered Gilles Ver’s final words. Had Gilles not said that both then and now, they had always been the Hero Party?

He still could not think that way. It was not some inferiority complex. It was simply a calm, objective assessment of himself. Inferiority complexes were emotions for small-minded men like Gilles Ver.

He would save these people. For his own purpose. Not because he treasured Tilles’s continued existence or the lives of its people.

Only for his own purpose. To keep the Grand Counts in check and eliminate one of them. For entirely political reasons.

So he could not call himself a member of the Hero Party. The Hero and the others had tried to save every person they saw for no reason beyond the fact that they stood before them.

A normal person could not imitate those lunatics. Ordinary people had ordinary lives. Ivan would be content with the role of scout.

Therefore, as a level-headed modern man, Ivan would not think of himself as part of the Hero Party. He was simply humoring a friend’s nonsense for a moment.

He was using that friend’s name, after all.

“Thank you for your dedication.”

Ivan glanced at the baron, who bowed with an impressed expression. He was about to walk away when he stopped.

“Ah. One more thing.”

“Speak.”

“Where does your loyalty lie?”

“Of course, with my liege and this nation. For Tilles’s great royal house of a thousand years.”

Ivan silently nodded at the baron’s answer, which held not the slightest hesitation.

Enough.

That ended the conversation. The baron comforted his people and left the road.

Ivan, left alone, started walking again and thought,

‘They will arrive within half a day. I did not erase the trail.’

He had prepared a path by mixing the tracks of fleeing refugees with the corpses of scattered Taurus scouts.

They would come charging at him with blood in their eyes.

Could he face a thousand well-trained Tauruses alone, with a centurion or higher among them?

He could. He had done it before.

Not head-on, but by fighting a delaying action and slowly wearing them down, he had faced twice that number.

Then what about Tauruses gathered in a shield formation, charging together?

He could do it. He had seen it done.

Gilles Ver had done it when he was not yet fully grown, when he had only just been knighted.

If Ivan could not even serve as a scout after being surpassed by that boy, what would be the point?

Once he had seen something even once, he had never found imitation difficult. His training had been for such things.

Ivan checked his equipment and lit a campfire in a suitable spot. He stirred it with damp branches until enough smoke rose from it.

He lightly roasted a Nutrient Bar over the embers and crunched through it. With cold eyes, he stared toward the horizon where the forest ended.

* * *

Footnotes:

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