WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Inept Mage’s Infinite Regression

Chapter 59

Ethan wasn’t convinced, so Osmal Saikal continued, "All of our victories so far wouldn’t have been possible without you and your dark magic. The Undying King realized that."

Ethan wanted to protest that it was all thanks to Osmal Saikal’s strategies, but he kept silent. It wasn’t purely Osmal Saikal’s tactics that had earned them victory, after all. If he were truly a legendary commander, he would have solved their predicaments regardless. Certainly, Osmal Saikal was an exemplary leader—he was knowledgeable in many fields, willing to accept tactics other nobles would oppose, and far more familiar with the Undying King than other commanders—yet all that wasn’t enough to win this war.

The only reason they had been able to confront the Undying King effectively so far was that, after each failure, they had the chance to correct their mistakes. Osmal Saikal himself had no power to turn back time, but his strategies had, in a sense, benefited from repeated resets. Naturally, Ethan couldn’t bring that up… and there was another point worth considering too.

"What is it the Undying King supposedly realized?"

"That he’s been too arrogant, believing that no commander of this era could truly defeat him, or at least fight him on equal footing. And if such a person does exist, he places them on the same level as the Emperor."

"I’m not actually capable of that, though," Ethan stated bluntly.

"Of course not," Osmal Saikal agreed. "If you were that powerful, Kardien and Yekatan wouldn’t have suffered so many defeats. But the Undying King still thinks it." At this, for the first time, Ethan saw Osmal Saikal lose the optimism he’d shown thus far. The noble facade was gone now, replaced by the desperation of a man who had fallen into darkness. "Why did the Undying King jump to that conclusion? Do you have any idea, Ethan?"

Ethan opened his mouth to answer, Well… but stopped. This wasn’t the time to reveal everything to Osmal Saikal.

Although Ethan hadn’t studied Ysoren’s history in great detail, he did know more than what was told in the Heroic Chronicles of Cario. When Cario the Hero emerged, the Undying King’s sub-commanders began losing battles one after another, and the Undying King’s strategy and tactics began to fail, like his magic had suddenly run dry. That was peculiar because his ability to command had nothing to do with magic.

'They say a Hero is born with powers that ordinary humans lack…'

Ethan wondered if Cario the Hero might have been a dark mage, but that didn’t seem likely. Unlike Emperor Cario, the stories of Hero Cario were well documented and extensively verified from multiple sources, leaving very few secrets unexplored. If he’d had any tie to dark magic, it would be common knowledge.

'So the Undying King was forced onto equal footing by some power of the Hero’s, and now he suspects my dark magic is something similar.'

A thought crept into Ethan’s mind: 'Maybe I can do what Hero Cario once did.'

'…And I think I know how.'

Ethan turned to Osmal Saikal and said, "Count."

"Yes? Figured it out?"

Ethan nodded. "I’m starting to."

In truth, nothing had changed. He still had a job to do. Gesturing at the map before Osmal Saikal, Ethan asked, "If you were to tackle this situation again, how would you proceed, my lord?"

"I guess trying to ambush the Undying King was a mistake. I never imagined his personal combat skills would be that great. We’d need more troops or more elite knights and mages, but that’s hard to get at this stage."

"And then?"

"I’d hold my position and build a defensive line. Even the Undying King wouldn’t have wanted to charge a fortification with skeletal soldiers alone after we’d had a day to prepare. Judging by his lavish use of gold during our battle, he’d rather avoid us if he can. That would’ve bought us half a day, so the next day we could have met up with six thousand vanguard troops from Yekatan in front of Dilloso. Then we’d combine the Yekatan vanguard, the surviving troops of Dilloso Fortress, and our forces to fight the Undying King’s eight thousand soldiers there. He probably would’ve arrived later than us if he’d chosen to go around."

"So the Undying King would’ve shown up late to that engagement?"

Osmal Saikal paused, then shook his head. "No, he would have turned back. Yes, exactly. Good catch. That makes it a lot more complicated. If he wouldn’t want to break through our defenses, he’d just withdraw."

"Then what about the Undying King’s forces that were stationed outside Dilloso?"

"With his magic, and no way for us to intercept his communications, he’d issue new orders to the commander there. They’d probably abandon Dilloso at once and march to Toes, and then the six thousand Yekatan troops racing here would have to fight them, and the Undying King likely knows every inch of Ysoren’s terrain. Without a fortress or a numerical advantage, Yekatan would face a crushing defeat in open battle."

"So what should we have done, then?"

"We should have ordered Yekatan’s vanguard to retreat. If they held Toes, they could at least have bought time to wait for their main force. The only concern is that Toes isn’t as sturdy a fortress as Dilloso."

"…How could we have gotten Yekatan’s vanguard to retreat?"

Osmal Saikal, who had been pondering the strategy with his head down, now lifted it. "I have no idea," he said. "The vanguard was assembled personally by the king of Yekatan in response to Baron Dilloso’s call for help. As a foreign noble, I can’t just tell the king’s officers what to do. They won’t listen unless to anyone but the king himself."

"I see. All right, then what about Kardien?"

"If the Undying King had withdrawn, he would’ve returned to his main force and engaged Kardien’s army again just like he is now. But a direct confrontation would’ve been risky. The Undying King’s forces have never actually lost a battle where he’s personally in command."

"So there’s no way we could’ve stopped all the fortresses from being taken down one by one."

"No, that’s not exactly what I’m saying. If I were king, I’d have bypassed the Undying King’s army and struck Cora to cut off his supply line. That would have been the best approach. If we had retaken Cora, we could have attacked the Undying King’s forces from two fronts."

You didn’t have to be a legendary commander to learn from your failures. By looking back on your mistakes, you could make better choices next time. Failure often was likened to falling off a cliff, but for those who reflected and tried again, it wasn’t the end. In fact, it could elevate them to new heights. Despite Osmal Saikal’s failure, or perhaps because of it, Ethan now found himself face to face with someone who had transcended his own limits.

"If you, Count Saikal, could go back with everything you know now, could you persuade the king to do all that?"

"…It’s hard to say." Osmal Saikal sighed. "I’m not on great terms with His Majesty. And he’s… not the most rational sort. If he’d been more sensible from the start, we wouldn’t be in this mess."

"…Then leave that part to me."

"Leave what to you?"

Ethan smiled at him. "You’ll have to take responsibility for that reckless optimism of yours."

That night, after finishing some simple preparations, Ethan Loaded.

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"What are those seals for?"

Winter break was drawing near. Boen watched as Ethan went into town and came back the next day with a pile of papers and a collection of stamps.

Ethan held them up one by one and explained, "This is the seal of the king of Kardien. That’s the seal of House Kardien. This one’s the royal emblem of Kardien. Here’s the city of Cora’s seal, the Saikal family seal, and over here, the Dilloso family seal…"

"That’s enough. I get it. How’d you get all of them?"

"I’d seen them on official documents before, so I copied them and paid someone to make duplicates for me."

In truth, Ethan had used Gespenst V to photograph the official documents sent to Osmal Saikal, then later replicated them. Of course, he couldn’t keep the photos when returning to the past, but he had drawn them so many times that he could now reproduce them well enough. No one would question the seals as long as the shape and format looked right, so Ethan deemed it sufficient.

"You know, the right contacts in the back alleys will make whatever you ask for if you pay enough. They won’t do it unless they already know you, but fortunately, I knew a guy: Fat Johny."

"And why do you need them? Here in Damarth, forging official documents is… an even worse crime than dark magic, you know."

"It’s not like I’m going to use them immediately. I just had to see if it was possible. Now I need to find the birdhouses for Kardien and Yekatan."

When you keep a bird in a cage, you call it a birdcage. If a bird builds its own nest, that’s a bird’s nest. A birdhouse sat somewhere in between—it was an institution that raised and trained courier birds, dispatching and receiving them. Intelligent familiars from a mage’s household could travel directly without relying on a birdhouse, but typical pigeons and crows couldn’t.

A noble household would write a letter and send it off with a bird. Then, the birdhouse would reassign the message to another bird and send it on to another noble. In wartime, birdhouse stations were of strategic importance, so their locations were generally kept secret. They chose and trained managers carefully from a well-trusted guild, yet the presence of a village nearby—and the constant coming and going of birds—made the location somewhat obvious, so there was usually a discreet understanding of their locations.

"Attacking a birdhouse would be… a really big deal."

"I’m not planning to attack one. I only want to swap some letters."

For the next month, Ethan traveled to Yekatan and Kardien with Boen. Obviously, they couldn’t inspect both places at once, so Ethan used Load several times, and they found that both birdhouse stations were heavily guarded.

"This looks tough," Boen remarked. "No knights, but there’s a tall watchtower, so…"

"Think about it, Boen."

"Think about what?"

"If you knew exactly when and where a messenger bird would be on a given day, could you snatch it, swap its letter, and send it on its way again?"

Boen pursed his lips. "If I tied a net to all my crystals, it might be doable. You have your familiar to help you, but if that’s what you have in mind…"

"If we find a place between a bird’s point of origin and the birdhouse where no one will notice, we can catch a bird unharmed."

"Yes."

"That’s next on our list."

"…This is ridiculous."

Ethan performed seven more Loads, scouting places between key fortresses where messenger birds traveled. The war broke out on repeat—Cora fell, Dilloso was overrun, and Kardien’s main army lost major battles. But that also made it absolutely clear which route the birds took. Messenger birds relied on homing instincts; they were trained to see one or both endpoints as home, meaning they always used the same corridor. Habits like their rest stops, their low-flying patterns over gentle slopes—these barely changed. Eventually, Ethan caught one pigeon in a net with his Gespenst V.

For Ethan, though, this was only the beginning. Everything so far was merely preparation.

'It’s doable.'

He loosened the letter from the pigeon’s leg. It was from the king of Kardien to Osmal Saikal, commanding him to wait in Tobira until allied forces could be formed. Normally, with Ethan’s advice, Osmal Saikal would ignore it and march on Dilloso. However, Ethan wasn’t with Osmal Saikal right now.

Ethan tore up the original message and attached his forged letter, instructing Osmal Saikal to head to Dilloso and prevent the Undying King’s main army from reaching it, to the pigeon’s leg.

'But that isn’t enough.'

Ethan produced yet another pigeon from his pocket. Because pigeons often flocked together, the second one would follow the first, which was trained to return to its birdhouse. On this second bird’s leg, Ethan attached a letter urging Osmal Saikal to persuade Baron Dilloso to follow the enclosed tactical directive.

When Ethan released the two pigeons, they flew off together toward the birdhouse, just as he’d expected.

'Try going through this, Undying King. Let’s see what an “exceptional existence” can do.'

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