WeTried Translations

Translator: Nemui

Editor: Nemui

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Friedrich's Battlefield

Chapter 126: A Comeback from the Brink (1)

──────

About a week had passed since the fall of Arnsberg fortress.

The Ferdinand Regiment and Hildegard Regiment, having retreated, gathered conscripts from the surrounding area and linked up with the first wave of reinforcements sent from the royal demesne. With roughly three thousand troops under them, they worked to construct a defensive line.

After dawn on the day following the fortress’s fall, they had retreated farther east. Beside the road two days from the fortress, at a point where the Arelian army would be forced to expose an undefended flank when advancing east, they built defensive positions atop a hill. They were trying to create a posture that would allow them to hold for the time being whether the enemy advanced toward the royal demesne or advanced to eliminate the remaining Edelstein forces.

The conscripts scraped together were unreliable as combat strength, but they served well as useful labor in civil engineering work, constructing dry moats and simple earth walls to hinder the enemy offensive, felling trees and making wooden fences, and deliberately damaging the road to obstruct an advance. As for the supplies needed to maintain the units, the transport unit was handling that without trouble.

Elsewhere, because of the royal house’s earlier orders, the lordly nobles of the kingdom’s west had also begun to act. They mobilized their domain forces and conscripts to defend the Northern Plains. With an organized force placed north of the western royal demesne, cooperation with the forces here would be possible if the need arose.

Fortunately, the Arelian side showed no sign of advancing farther.

On the contrary, the elite units that had been the key to taking the fortress were withdrawing, and in their place, inferior forces such as noble domain troops and conscripts were filling the gap in numbers. Supplies had begun to be brought in as well.

Judging from these circumstances, the enemy, which had been moving on a large scale ever since the invasion of the Kingdom of Novakia, appeared to have finally run out of breath and would now stop to reorganize.

The enemy’s advance had halted, and for the time being there was no sign that it would resume. For the Kingdom of Edelstein, which had lately been receiving nothing but ill news, this was the only good news. The fact that they had to regard the mere halting of the enemy’s feet as good news showed the hardship this country now faced.

And the enemy was said to be digging out the dry moat they had filled, repairing the broken drawbridge and gate, keeping many troops constantly stationed atop the walls, and proceeding with preparations to defend the fortress firmly. Edelstein could stop the enemy advance, but taking the fortress by a surprise attack from the east and north was now difficult.

Apparently, the Kingdom of Arelia had no intention of making the same mistake as the Kingdom of Loire more than twenty years ago, when it had been surprised and had a thinly defended fortress taken from it.

“We have the bare minimum in numbers, and the defensive positions are finally starting to look the part… but the problem is morale.”

In the command tent jointly established by the two regiments, at a war council held at least once a day even when nothing happened, the one who muttered those words was Diethelm Brightkreuz, acting commander of the Hildegard Regiment.

The fall of Arnsberg fortress, the keystone of the border defense. The death in battle of the living hero of Edelstein, who had become a symbolic presence in the kingdom’s army. Joseph, who had long defended the Beiral Plains, had survived, but perhaps because of his age, his injuries were in poor condition, his strength was spent, and he was in no state to command.

Those facts naturally cast a dark shadow over everyone’s hearts. The ability and achievements of Friedrich and Diethelm, who had inherited command, did not matter in this case. After hearing so many terrible reports in succession, there was no one who would not be depressed.

As a result, morale had fallen severely, especially among the conscripts. If that Arnsberg fortress had been taken, if the living hero of Edelstein had died, if the seasoned old general had fallen, then perhaps they could no longer win. Such anxiety was spreading.

Leaving this decline in morale alone would be dangerous. For now, the kingdom’s regular soldiers were somehow maintaining their morale, but aside from the knights, there was no telling what would happen to the rank-and-file soldiers if things continued like this. If the anxiety of the conscripts gathered here spread, it would also have a negative effect on the conscripts still to gather and on the other common people.

If an atmosphere of defeat settled before the fighting even began, some lordly nobles might give up on the battle from the outset.

The collapse of morale among soldiers and conscripts. Lordly nobles refusing to participate. If such a situation came to pass, defeat would truly be decided before the decisive battle.

That said, there was no effective means to raise the morale of the conscripts in this situation. Friedrich, discovered as the hero’s successor, and Diethelm, the heir of a great house and an excellent knight, were not unknown among the people, but they still could not compare to their great predecessors. They could not give everyone courage simply by showing themselves, as Matthias had, nor could they put spirit into their subordinates with a single shout, as Joseph had.

“The more I think about it, the angrier I get at Countess Fargiere. To devise a plan while gambling the stability of the very country she serves, she is clever, but she is a fool.”

“Haha, that is a good way of putting it.”

At Diethelm’s merciless criticism, Friedrich let out a faint wry laugh.

She had thrown the elites who were the key to defending the kingdom’s center into the front line without stint, effectively used the jaegers brought from the northern continent, broken through the Kingdom of Novakia’s border, and conquered it with lightning speed. Then, pretending that she would return the elites to the center after finishing the annexation, she had again advanced with lightning speed to surround and attack Arnsberg fortress. She created a situation in which the Ferdinand Regiment had no choice but to enter the battle before it could prepare, then defeated them along with the fortress defenders through a surprise attack, and finally seized the fortress.

This operation had been realized only because Countess Cecilia Fargiere’s wisdom, the nerve of the Arelian king who allowed such a daring plan, and the national strength of the Kingdom of Arelia all came together. It was vivid enough to be artistic, but at the same time, it was a terrifyingly dangerous gamble.

If elite troops had been absent from the kingdom’s center for this long, any number of harmful effects could have appeared. In the worst case, nobles or former royal families from regions annexed over the past several decades might have seen weakness at the center and risen in rebellion.

Even if that had not happened, if the irreplaceable elite forces that were their treasured military strength had suffered heavy losses in the invasion, the power of the Arelian royal house afterward would have been greatly weakened, and that might have led directly to the collapse of that distorted great power.

Even a plan carrying that much danger could not be guaranteed absolute success. If the jaeger unit had failed in the battle at the Novakian border. If annexing the Kingdom of Novakia had taken too long. If the lightning advance on Arnsberg fortress had been exposed midway to the Kingdom of Edelstein. Precisely because the operation was long, complex, and large in scale, there must have been countless factors that could have led to failure.

“It certainly was a foolishly dangerous operation… but Countess Fargiere succeeded. That is everything. She is a fearsome strategist, and her plan was magnificent.”

“…You sound detached, Friedrich.”

At Friedrich’s words, which could be taken as praise for the enemy who had killed his foster father, Diethelm responded with a surprised look.

“Plans made on the battlefield are all like gambles. The plans I have devised until now always carried the possibility of failure too. I was lucky enough that all of them succeeded, so I came to be praised as a talent worthy of the hero’s successor… The conditions are the same for Countess Fargiere. She set her intellect to work, faced her gamble without fear, and achieved a tremendous result. If that is so, we should acknowledge her as the victor.”

Soldiers fought because it was their duty, and there was no room to insert personal feelings into that. One should not rejoice at killing anyone in war, nor should one resent anyone for being killed.

His late foster father had said so. That was why Friedrich would never distort his evaluation of Countess Fargiere out of hatred.

“Without question, she is the victor, but only of the opening battle. We will win the decisive battle and become the final victors. I will defeat Countess Fargiere, and the Kingdom of Edelstein will defeat the Kingdom of Arelia.”

Quietly, yet ferociously, Friedrich spoke with the air of a noble beast about him. Seeing him, Diethelm now let out a faint wry laugh.

“You are looking more and more like Lord Hosenfeld… like the previous lord.”

“Am I?”

At an evaluation he had not been conscious of, Friedrich felt a little embarrassed and smiled shyly.

“Yes. The atmosphere you carry is growing similar. It is reassuring… Of course, I have no intention of giving up on victory either, but in that case, we still need to think of some way to raise the soldiers’ morale. We need everyone already gathered and everyone still to gather to believe there is a chance of victory. Even if we have the will, if the soldiers do not feel they can win, in the worst case the army will collapse before the decisive battle.”

“That is true. Even so, we have no material right now to raise their morale.”

Friedrich too had been thinking of a plan. But no brilliant idea had yet come to him. Since this was not a problem that could be solved through tactical ingenuity, he could not handle it as he had with his past unorthodox plans.

To raise morale, one could either show a physical chance of victory or show spiritual hope. The former was difficult. The Kingdom of Edelstein was clearly inferior to the Kingdom of Arelia in national strength. On top of that, it had just suffered a painful defeat. That fact was already beginning to spread.

And as for the latter, no matter how he struggled, the current Friedrich could not become everyone’s hope the way his father Matthias had.

“No… If that is the case…”

Suddenly, one thought appeared in Friedrich’s mind.

A scene from memory. The residents of Volga, stirred to fighting spirit by the words of Friedrich when he had falsely claimed to be the hero’s heir. The people of the royal demesne, who after the great incident of the prince and duke’s rebellion had not fallen into disappointment toward the royal house, but instead come to trust it more after seeing King Sigismund’s dignified bearing and hearing his speech.

People, the common folk, were swept up by the mood.

They were moved not by logic but by atmosphere, and decided and acted not through reason but through emotion.

Who, now, could move the atmosphere of this country itself? It was not Friedrich, who had inherited the hero’s role before gaining enough fame.

Only one person could move the hearts of the people, depending on how she presented herself and how she spoke.

That person was…

“Messenger! A hawk message from the royal castle!”

A knight holding a small message meant for hawk delivery rushed into the command tent, interrupting Friedrich’s thoughts just as they were beginning to take shape.

Diethelm was still the heir of a noble house and the acting regimental commander, so Friedrich, as a count and formal regimental commander, received the letter as the highest-ranking person present. He unrolled the curled message and looked at the short text written there.

“…His Majesty the King has passed away.”

When he read out the first line, a great shock ran through everyone gathered. Friedrich himself, reading the words, was shocked as well.

Some senior retainers had heard that King Sigismund’s illness had reached a state where he might pass away at any time. Even those who had not heard had roughly sensed it.

Everyone had prepared themselves to hear this news someday not too far off. They had prepared themselves to see off the great king. But every one of them felt, does it have to be now?

“There is more… Make this news widely known. In two weeks, the crown princess will come to the front. Gather as many people as possible from the towns and villages, evenly without regard for age or sex, and receive her.”

At the contents read next, everyone now felt doubt.

“…We are to announce it? At this moment, that His Majesty the King has passed away?”

The first to voice that doubt was the Hildegard Regiment’s adjutant to the regimental commander, who was currently assisting Diethelm.

“But if we do that, the soldiers and people will grow even more anxious.”

“And before long, the enemy will learn of it as well. If the enemy discovers that this country has lost its king, their momentum may rise… Rather than announce it, should we not hide it for as long as possible?”

Rudiger spoke, followed by the words of the Hildegard Regiment’s archer battalion commander.

“I do not understand the reason for gathering people regardless of age or sex either. If we bring together people who cannot even become conscripts without a plan, they will only be useless mouths to feed on this battlefield.”

“A messenger knight will probably arrive later and explain the details, but… what exactly is Her Highness thinking…”

Diethelm muttered with a bitter expression, and after Gregor’s following words, silence once again spread through the tent.

If a hawk was to be made to fly a long distance, the message it could carry was very small. The amount that could be written on it was limited. Moreover, the hawks imported from the south varied between individuals, and the larger birds had been preferentially assigned to each regiment, where emergency reports were likely.

Therefore, the smaller hawks at the royal castle could carry even smaller messages, making it impossible to give any complex explanation. Crown Princess Claudia had narrowed the message to an explanation of facts and instructions for them.

Even so, in the current situation, no one could read Claudia’s intent, and confusion was beginning to turn into anxiety.

In the midst of that, Friedrich was looking down at the message with a smile.

“…Friedrich?”

Yurika, who had been watching Friedrich throughout the entire council, spoke when she saw his face. At Yurika’s words, the others noticed Friedrich’s smile as well.

“It seems Her Highness the Crown Princess is thinking of the same plan I am… First, we will announce His Majesty’s passing in accordance with Her Highness’s instructions. Then we will gather people from as many settlements as possible as witnesses to what is about to happen. Let us draw up a plan by the end of today to send messengers quickly to each region. People from distant places will likely need to be transported by carriage, so preparations for that as well. What happens after that will probably be…”

While hoping that his thinking matched the intent of Claudia, who would become the new sovereign, and at the same time feeling half certain of it, Friedrich spoke to everyone.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried