WeTried Translations

Translator: Nemui

Editor: Nemui

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◈ Friedrich's Battlefield

Chapter 144: Decisive Battle (4)

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The two companies that had come to the battlefield from the Bachstein Regional Defense Battalion stood at one corner of the very front, desperately supporting the line.

Among them were Franziska and the other former knights of the old duchy army. Because their background made royal and noble knights view them poorly, they had not been added to the cavalry. They were made to fight as infantry instead.

"Commander! Her Majesty! Her Majesty is right there!"

Roman called out to Platoon Leader Franziska, who was fighting desperately with her men.

"Huh? What nonsense are... wait, Her Majesty!?"

Franziska turned toward where Roman pointed with a doubtful expression, then cried out when she saw Queen Claudia advancing surrounded by the Royal Guard.

Advance.

The queen said that while moving farther forward herself.

Claudia looked across the soldiers around her and raised her voice with such power that it seemed to echo through the whole vanguard. For a moment, Franziska felt as if their eyes met.

"A-advance! Platoon, forward!"

Franziska gave the order to her men, who until then had barely managed to slow their retreat, without even having time to consider how unreasonable it was.

"Her Majesty is watching us! If we fight hard here and win merits, that will become certain proof of our loyalty! Do not let this chance pass! Advance!"

At Franziska's encouragement, the morale of the platoon boiled over at once.

It was not only the former knights. The soldiers from the old duchy territory also knew that they were called a battalion of traitors in the shadows and that ill feelings toward their homeland remained deep.

That was exactly why they fought even more boldly than before, so the queen could see their struggle. They worked so fiercely that they themselves wondered where the strength had been hidden, showing a truly furious effort and pushing back the enemies who had been pressing them until then.

Perhaps unable to ignore that, one of the few officers placed in the enemy vanguard, a knight serving as commander rather than a conscript, rode forward as if to trample them.

"Do not get in our way!"

There was no chance Franziska would allow this man to block their opportunity to clear their disgrace. Screaming, she used Roman's back as a foothold, leapt, and threw herself at the enemy knight on horseback. With that momentum, she knocked the knight from the saddle and took his place on the horse, seizing the reins.

She guided the horse so its forelegs faced the fallen knight. The enemy knight screamed, muffled inside his helmet. Franziska trampled him to death beneath the horse's forelegs, then faced forward and raised her sword from the saddle.

The view was far higher than an infantryman's.

It was a nostalgic view.

This was the proof of knighthood she fought to truly regain.

"Advance! We will recover our honor!"

"Yeah!"

Her men, excited by Franziska's extraordinary performance, answered vigorously and slashed at the enemies before them.

Franziska looked back toward the queen again. Claudia, who she felt had been looking at her moments before, now faced forward.

Had the queen seen her just now? Or had someone else seen it and would later tell the queen?

Surely they would.

Believing that, Franziska spurred the horse and cut into the enemy formation.

......

"Damn it! We are finished!"

"There is no winning this!"

The men being pushed back the hardest at the front were the least trained conscripts. They had come forward to fill gaps left by regular soldiers and mercenaries who had fallen or withdrawn with wounds, but they were not strong enough. They were forced back, and many began fleeing after their morale broke before the first life-or-death battle of their lives.

"Advance!"

A noble voice rang out.

When they looked back, Queen Claudia Edelstein was there.

With the Royal Guard, her armor shining and royal banners fluttering around her, the queen stood in the middle of the battlefield filled with the stench of blood and entrails. Not only those who had attended last year's coronation, but also those who knew it only indirectly, understood at a glance that she was the queen.

"It is Her Majesty! The one who will lead us to victory! We advance with her!"

The man shouting to the conscripts around him, the soldiers of his platoon, was Werner, a volunteer and former kingdom knight. He raised his sword and advanced as he encouraged them, and several brave conscripts answered.

One of them was Bruno.

"D-don't run! We have to move forward!"

"Are you serious, Bruno!?"

"If we stay here any longer..."

"We still move forward!"

Bruno shouted at his frightened comrades, desperately suppressing the fear that would flood his heart the moment he relaxed. Tears and snot wet his face as he cried out.

"If we run and survive, what good does that do!? If they attack our hometown, our families will suffer like this! I will never let those bastards kill my wife and child! That is why we advance!"

"...Damn it! Fine! I have family too!"

One man advanced with Bruno. Soon the others were pulled along and began moving forward too.

At that instant, another rain of arrows fell over the area where Bruno and the others stood.

Because the battle was already a melee, the density was not very high. Even so, the sharp sound of arrows cutting the air and grazing nearby chilled conscripts unused to the exchange of lives.

When the rain of arrows stopped, Bruno checked that no arrow had pierced his body. He looked around and saw that his nearby comrades were also safe. Relieved by that luck, he turned forward again and his face changed color.

"C-Commander!"

Platoon Leader Werner had taken arrows to the chest and stomach and was on one knee.

"T-this is bad! Your wounds..."

"Advance!"

Werner shouted at the shaken Bruno. As he shouted, he thrust the sword he had used since his days as an active knight into Bruno's hands.

"My death alone will not change the battle! But if you do not advance, we lose the war! Ignore me and advance! That is an order! You are soldiers now, are you not?"

"...Right! We go, all of you! Advance!"

Bruno accepted Werner's sword, raised it, and faced forward again. The other conscripts Werner had commanded followed him.

Those who had regained morale in that harsh battlefield through the queen's encouragement would not break so easily now.

As if inheriting Werner's resolve, the conscripts advanced bravely on their own. Watching their backs, Werner smiled faintly.

He had been looking for a place to die.

Ever since the day he buried his daughter.

He had survived and retired as a knight. He survived the great war against the Kingdom of Loire, then saw several smaller battles, skirmishes, and bandit hunts afterward, ending all of them unwounded before retiring.

Father, you are my ideal.

His daughter had said that and become a knight as well. Then she died in the opening battle of this war.

His daughter had fought and died, and he still lived. That fact had tormented him all this time. In the capital under wartime footing, he had served as an instructor for conscripts and made what contribution he could, but the guilt toward his daughter had never disappeared.

Those days ended now.

"I will die on the battlefield too, Noela."

Calling to his dead daughter, Werner collapsed on the blood-soaked battlefield.

With that, Werner's war ended.

......

Claudia continued advancing with the Royal Guard and finally reached the very front near the center, the position guarded by the Albrecht Regiment's infantry battalion.

"Lord Eisenhut! Your struggle is worthy of the highest praise!"

When Claudia called from horseback, Marquis Rebecca Eisenhut turned back, raised her sword high in acknowledgment, then immediately faced forward and returned to battle.

The three hundred elite infantry had suffered surprisingly few losses considering their position. But because they had fought so hard to hold their ground, they were beginning to be isolated, left behind by the friendly units that had retreated on either side.

"Royal Guard infantry! Support them!"

At Claudia's order, the Royal Guard infantry immediately deployed forward and attacked the enemy group trying to surround the Albrecht Regiment's infantry battalion. To the Royal Guard infantry, elites selected from within the royal army itself, conscripts were small fry. They reduced the enemy numbers in the blink of an eye.

With the Royal Guard joining the line, the Albrecht Regiment's infantry battalion gained enough room to pull back the wounded and breathe for a moment. After catching their breath slightly, they returned to the battle as if they had not yet fought enough.

The soldiers forged on battlefields and the Royal Guard, sometimes mocked by those same soldiers as a pretty battalion, fought shoulder to shoulder.

Meanwhile, Claudia's own direct guard had become thinner, and the tension among the fifty knights protecting her rose even higher. Enemy soldiers were now visible, and arrows fell everywhere. Viscount Gustav Eichberger, captain of the Royal Guard leading Claudia forward, was so far from calm that his usual expressionless face had broken. He kept looking back to confirm that his sovereign was still safe on horseback.

"Advance! The kingdom's victory lies ahead! Advance! Advance!"

Claudia continued raising her voice. Gallant, noble, and powerful, she shouted and kept encouraging knights and soldiers.

The army of the Kingdom of Edelstein answered.

The elite royal soldiers supported the center. To their left and right, regular soldiers and conscripts mixed together and pushed forward with desperate force. Mercenaries with nowhere to run were dragged along as well, and all of them faced the great mass of enemy conscripts in order to push back the ground they had lost.

From behind came arcing arrows. The imperial reinforcements and the kingdom's archer units released arrows with furious speed to make the front line's battle even slightly easier. Their arrows rained down on the enemy formation and weakened the enemy's momentum.

Advance. Advance. Advance.

The chant, filled with strange heat, excited allies further and intimidated enemies.

To stir the fire of fighting spirit still higher, Claudia shouted again.

"Advance! For the future of all of us! Advance..."

At that moment, one of the countless flying arrows struck Claudia's head.

A sharp metallic sound rang out, and Claudia's upper body bent far backward.

"Your Majesty!"

Gustav happened to be looking back and saw that instant. His face changed color as he shouted.

"I am unharmed!"

Claudia pulled her leaning body upright on horseback and answered while facing forward again.

The arrow had been deflected. There was a large scrape on the helmet, but nothing more.

"God says I am not fated to die here! Advance!"

Claudia raised the sword passed down in the royal house, the sword the first queen Waltrude had used on the battlefield, and roared. Her voice carried a legendary presence, as if the mother of the nation had descended into her. Knights and soldiers answered with still higher morale.

Advance. Advance. Advance. Advance. Advance.

Heat and excitement spread, heightening each other and sharing fighting spirit as everyone fought. With the support of allied arrows, they cut down, pierced, and crushed the endless enemy conscripts who appeared before them, continuing a battle whose end could not be seen.

Only after that much fierce struggle did Edelstein's army manage to push the line back slightly.

The enemy still had nearly twenty thousand vanguard infantry, and behind them waited a rear formation of regular soldiers.

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