WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Inept Mage’s Infinite Regression

Chapter 61

The nobles and even the kings of Kardien and Yekatan felt that the war needed to end, but all of their envoys were rejected, and the Emperor refused to mediate. The Undying King had seized Cora and Dilloso, and so many soldiers had died that both Kardien and Yekatan wanted to halt the fighting. Some even suggested surrender.

From the nobles’ point of view, looking solely at the dwindling troop count, that proposal was sensible. No noble would deliberately lead their own soldiers to death on the battlefield—every soldier was also a subject. Regardless of whether a noble possessed genuine compassion, if they lost the people’s support, they’d have no choice but to brace for a peasant revolt. To avoid that, the nobles of both Kardien and Yekatan now had to give up many of their vested interests.

Yet it was beyond imagining that the Undying King would choose to split his forces and have them withdraw from the battlefield. The Undying King believed that these divided forces could achieve great victories simply by following his tactical orders, and indeed, that was what happened. To minimize losses, the allied commanders also divided their forces—though that was, in truth, Ethan’s doing.

Troops divided at the company or even platoon level frequently ended up nearly annihilated. Even if they weren’t all wiped out, if 30–50% of the unit was killed during a mission, that force had effectively lost its capacity to wage war. From Ethan’s perspective, the troops became useless after strategic victories, but in practical terms, the overall number of available forces really did shrink. Even without Ethan’s involvement, the royal families of both kingdoms realized the dire state of the war. For both nations, it was a catastrophically destructive conflict that would go down in history.

The problem was that it was now impossible for them to surrender. Whether the Undying King would accept their surrender or a temporary ceasefire was irrelevant—Kardien and Yekatan were, in fact, winning.

No one understood what was actually happening. A noble once derided as dim-witted was producing brilliant stratagems, and a knight known only for calculating self-interest was making heroic sacrifices. Everyone came to believe that their superior commander was a legendary general, that the Undying King was not so invincible after all, and that the war was winnable.

It wasn’t just the soldiers who were enchanted by this notion either. The people heard the reports from the front lines. If they surrendered to the Undying King in this state, the king—and even the nobles—couldn’t complain if they were dethroned. At least right now, the people’s anger was focused entirely on the Undying King, so the two monarchs had no choice but to pursue victory.

Ethan believed he was on the brink of triumph, but as the Undying King combined his once-separated battlefronts, Ethan could only react to the Undying King’s maneuvers. The Undying King still essentially dictated the battlefield. When the Undying King’s two armies barricaded themselves inside two strongholds, Ethan thought the conflict was in its final phase.

He was gravely mistaken. Once the scattered knights and nobles, the lower and upper-ranked commanders, all converged, they discovered the truth: The spell of Ethan’s orders was instantly broken.

Ethan’s command had already become suspect after about half a month. Carrier birds were competent messengers, but for vital orders, one naturally also sent human couriers. By the time those couriers arrived, victories had already been won, so the commanders assumed some kind of mix-up had occurred, but the two kings recognized something was amiss.

Slowly, the higher-ranking nobles began to confirm the facts, doubting Ethan’s orders but still going along with them. However, when everyone gathered in one place, they realized the problem was more serious than they’d thought. The nobles compared the orders and tactical directives they’d each received and uncovered the fake seals. The false orders were easy to identify: Ethan’s dispatches were always packed with densely written text.

Though his guidance had led to victories, the fact that no one knew who was behind it was reason enough for distrust. More importantly, it wasn’t discovered just after they’d secured victory. The mere possibility that all these fake commands had ultimately been intended to cause their defeat was enough for them to reject any further orders. They sent carrier birds in different directions so they could cross-check information, and they dispatched couriers for even minor orders. Ethan briefly suspected Dark God Yor or someone’s messenger might be involved, but that was a groundless suspicion, only because in Damarth Yumaha, Yor was the byword for trickery.

In addition, Ethan’s orders had not always produced perfect results. In the grand scheme of a strategy, someone often had to be sacrificed, someone had to act as bait and truly get caught in a trap to fool the enemy, and sometimes people had to fight to the last man to buy time. Soldiers who died or were severely injured—or barely survived—while serving as pawns had all carried Ethan’s letters, which only amplified their distrust of him.

“…He must have thought that far ahead.”

Ethan believed the Undying King still had no idea what Ethan’s dark magic truly was or how it worked. If he did, he would have dispatched Mage Hunters or asked the Imperial Inquisition to send anyone to kill Ethan, lurking around birdhouses or elsewhere.

But now, Ethan was being hunted by Kardien and Yekatan. With Demi’s assistance, it wasn’t hard for him to escape. However, continuing to intercept carrier birds and issue false commands in this climate was very difficult.

Nor was that the only hindrance. Winter was now in full swing.

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It was snowing heavily. The snow lay knee-deep, but fierce winds kicked it up in a fog, obscuring Ethan’s vision. When his horse grew too tired to continue, Ethan had to dismount and lead it by the reins. At one point, he lost his way and froze to death. Ethan found it shocking, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. He’d begun extensively Loading; now, whenever things went poorly, he reLoaded without hesitation. He no longer worried too much about losing his life. If he died, he could simply try again.

This time, he wasn’t on an endless stretch of trackless plains, and he didn’t get lost, likely because he had passed through Tobira. Passing Tobira reminded him of the time he and Boen had once nabbed a thief in the gambling den there—it felt like a distant memory now, and indeed, by Ethan’s personal timeline, it was the distant past. Facing the Undying King, Ethan had repeated spans of at least a month or as long as two months for what he estimated to be at about eight years. This was one extremely long winter break.

Finally, he saw Cora Fortress, which had changed hands four times in a single month. Though its towering, grand walls had been repaired, they still showed damage from catapult attacks. Atop a hill in the distance, where Cora was clearly visible, the Kardien army had set up camp. Thanks to Ethan’s most recent false orders, they were well supplied, even with the sudden blizzard. Otherwise, they might have lost the war before the battle could even begin as the storm raged on for several more days.

Per a soldier’s guidance, Ethan was invited to the command center. Since the king of Kardien was in poor health and unable to lead personally, Osmal served as their top commander. This was Ethan’s first time meeting him in this life, so Ethan greeted him somewhat stiffly, but Osmal already seemed to hold a favorable impression of Ethan, someone who had joined the war at a friend’s request.

“You’ve got quite a lot of guts,” Osmal said. “This isn’t even your own domain you’re fighting for.”

“What’s good for everyone is good for me too.”

“Just as I heard—your blood runs noble. Will you have a cup of tea to warm you?”

“I’d like that.”

Boen, who was seated across the table, rose and poured Ethan a cup. “Long time no see.”

“Everything okay?” Ethan replied.

“More or less, thanks to you.”

Boen hadn’t forgotten the countless sets of commands and tactical directives Ethan had handed him, nor was he unaware that those very orders had dragged the war to this point. But it was no longer feasible to fight that way. Thus, Ethan had to join the war personally to secure victory.

Ethan took a sip of green tea, and his spirits lifted as he felt the warmth spread through his body. Even though Ethan could no longer fight the Undying King the same way as before, and even though both kingdoms’ situations continued to deteriorate, circumstances weren’t altogether hopeless. Currently, the Undying King had 4,200 troops stationed in Cora, compared to Kardien’s 8,700—about a two-to-one ratio. In a siege, that wasn’t a massive numerical advantage, but they had at least been able to slowly gather and assemble siege equipment during the blizzard. Meanwhile, Cora’s garrison was cut off and receiving no further supplies. Ethan had deliberately allowed Cora to fall precisely because he knew about this ten-day blizzard. Even if they’d held the fortress, the soldiers would be useless when sick and starving.

Ethan, hoping for good news, asked Osmal, “Count Saikal, what’s the situation elsewhere? I haven’t heard anything since I came here.”

Osmal raised his teacup, blew on it to cool it, then put it down again. “It’s grim.”

“Pardon?”

“Eurogia has declared their participation,” Osmal explained.

Ethan wondered if he’d heard that wrong.

“Eurogia… is helping the Undying King? That region is so far from here. They have no direct interest in this war. They might be vassals of the Emperor, but the Emperor can’t just order them to war on a whim, right?”

“I don’t know their reasoning. Maybe they made a deal with the Undying King or with the Emperor, or maybe they got tangled in Imperial politics. The important point is that those necromancers are now coming for us.”

The five great families whose names were recorded from ancient times and were most respected by the Mage Council were Charasen, Cluve, Angarsen, Shio, and Eurogia. Among them, the two families with the biggest influence on the Royal Round Table, comprising kings and nobles, were Angarsen and Eurogia. If you narrowed that down further to the family that had killed the most people, it was undoubtedly Eurogia.

Having inherited Emperor Myu’s research, the Eurogia family had become known as the founders of necromancy, dispatching necromancers to assist many royal families and noble houses. At the height of Eurogia’s power, countless nobles employed skeletal soldiers as private armies through these necromancers, and many such necromancers effectively seized real authority, waging proxy wars throughout numerous kingdoms. Over time, that phenomenon had eventually evolved into a religion known as the Undying Church, which appeared and disappeared through various rises and falls—though this was all ancient history, from long before the Undying King emerged.

Eurogia’s power wasn’t what it used to be, largely because history taught everyone how frightening necromancy could be. Though it didn’t receive as much scorn as dark magic, necromancy was shunned—several magic academies even explicitly banned it. Eurogia had relocated their domain to Yumaha to escape the Mage Council’s influence, and after the founding of the Empire, they’d naturally been incorporated into it.

Now that Eurogia had officially entered the conflict, there was no way of knowing how many enemies they would face. The real terror of the Undying King was not his skill in necromancy but his unmatched ability to command an army. According to historical records, at the peak of the Eurogia family’s power, the Undying King’s necromancy skills were “not particularly remarkable.”

Boen chimed in, “But it’s not entirely hopeless.”

Osmal raised his teacup again and said, “I’d hoped to keep that under wraps for a moment.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“It doesn’t matter, this timing is perfect.” Osmal stood and gestured toward the entrance of the tent. “Come in and introduce yourselves.”

Ethan saw a familiar face walk in, smiling—Rivielton Fabier.

“You look a bit gaunt, Ethan.”

“…Professor?”

“Boen. A cup of tea for me as well?”

“Ah, yes.”

“And you’d better brew plenty of it.”

People continued filing in behind Rivielton.

Turning to Ethan, Osmal said, “It’s overdue, but we’ve succeeded in forging an allied force. Due to the blizzard, it’ll take time to gather everyone, but the battle mages have managed to get here. Go ahead and make your introductions. You’ll all be fighting together.”

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