WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Asakusa
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◈ Veteran of the Northern Front ◈
Chapter 35: The Siege of Camilla Fortress (1)
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News of the Right Army’s collapse soon reached Camilla Fortress as well.
“...The Right Army fell?”
“Yes.”
“Ha...”
The news that a force holding one axis of the front had been wiped out in just a day left me reeling.
Even after leading the Frostfire Operation to success and warning them of the enemy invasion, the future had not changed.
“The other armies are still fighting hard to hold back the enemy. The northern lords have begun assembling reinforcements after hearing the news, and the central government is said to be sending a punitive force soon.”
Losing one line of defense from the very first battle was a bitter blow.
Still, it was somewhat reassuring to hear that the Left Army, which Berun belonged to, and the Central Army, the Northern Army’s main force, were unharmed.
“Then it’s time for us to earn our keep. What orders did the Rear Army receive?”
“A war dispatch has arrived ordering us to swiftly reorganize and join them, but...”
Realistically, joining them at once was impossible.
After the Right Army was annihilated, the barbarian forces had split into two large groups.
‘Forty thousand, their main force, are facing the Central Army and Left Army.’
The remaining thirty thousand were attacking the rear through the gap left by the Right Army’s collapse.
Seventy thousand troops in total.
It was fewer than I had seen in the game due to all the butterfly effects, but the situation was still no better.
‘As long as they’re wreaking havoc in the rear...’
The Rear Army could not easily join the front.
The same went for us.
‘If we want to join the front, we have to crush the enemies invading first.’
Just as I rose to check the fortress’s defenses, Ren burst into the office with an urgent expression.
“C-Commander! They’re here! The scout unit has spotted barbarians.”
At last, they had come.
“Gather every soldier stationed in the fortress at the northern wall.”
It was time to show them what we had prepared.
‘Normally, that dog bastard Perez would have caused this place to fall so anticlimactically.’
But that would not happen this time.
I quickly armed myself, left the office, and headed for the wall.
When I arrived, Martin, who was preparing for battle, and Jackson, who had returned from scouting, were waiting for me.
“Where are the enemies?”
“They’re coming along the forest road. They should soon be visible from the wall.”
“How many?”
“The brush made it impossible to confirm exactly, but there are roughly two thousand to twenty-five hundred.”
“Have the First and Second Strike Forces guard the gate. Send every other soldier up onto the wall.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Tell Raul to bring out what we stocked in the warehouse.”
Perhaps because they had remained on a war footing, the soldiers moved in perfect order.
“Hurry!”
“Get into formation, now!”
“You there! Stop running ahead by yourself and get in line!”
As I watched the results of our training with satisfaction, Dihelm, who had heard the news late, came looking for me.
“My lord.”
“What is it? Why did you come out here when it’s dangerous?”
“I thought I might be able to help you.”
Dihelm was among the strategists most skilled in schemes and military strategy. Ordinarily, he would have been of great help in battle, but...
“Though it seems I worried for nothing.”
Unfortunately, I did not need his help just yet.
“Our preparations are perfect. Don’t worry, just go inside and rest.”
Dihelm looked over the soldiers’ formation and the supplies piled atop the wall, then smiled faintly.
Sharp as he was, he had already read my intentions.
“Yes. Then I shall wait inside the fortress for news of your victory, my lord.”
“Prepare some celebratory drinks too, if you have the time.”
“Leave it to me.”
After waving him off, I waited for the enemy with the soldiers.
A little while later, barbarians slowly emerged in the distance.
‘They have some military bearing, at least.’
Unlike the barbarians we had faced before, these ones were moving in a loose formation.
With such a large force gathered, they seemed to have established some sort of command structure.
‘Even so, compared to our soldiers, they’re a rabble.’
As I assessed their movements and formation, a figure who appeared to be their commander stepped forward, dragging along an Imperial dressed like a beggar.
At a glance, they looked like a prisoner they kept around as an interpreter.
The barbarian shouted something, and the interpreter swallowed nervously before calling out.
“He says, ‘I am Kardum, chieftain of the Great Rock Tribe! If the Imperials do not wish to die, open the gates and surrender!’”
“What?”
“That barbarian bastard’s insane...!”
Max and the others bristled at the demand to open the gates and surrender, but I stopped them and shouted at the enemy in the barbarian tongue.
“To hell with surrender. Go drink more of your mother’s milk, brat.”
“!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Kardum’s face turned bright red at my courteous reply.
“I’ll kill you!”
As Kardum drew a weapon and charged forward, the barbarians rushed in as if answering the chieftain’s call.
Apparently, they had not come entirely without a plan. Rather than trying to breach the thick iron gate, they brought ladders forward and targeted the wall.
‘Did they hear about the fortress and prepare accordingly?’
Perhaps the prisoner they had captured earlier had told them.
‘Either way, it makes little difference to us.’
If anything, I wanted to praise them.
They intended to scale a fortress with walls eleven meters high, not with siege engines but with nothing more than ladders?
That was truly impressive bravery.
Marveling at Kardum’s intelligence and Perez, who had allowed someone like this to conquer the fortress, I gave the order.
“Everyone, wait until the enemy approaches the wall.”
“Yes, sir!”
At my command, the soldiers held their positions without wavering while the enemy set their ladders against the wall.
The barbarians climbed like monkeys.
I waited until they were close.
Then,
“Pour it.”
The instant I finished speaking, the soldiers dumped the liquid from their jars over the wall.
Sizzle.
“Gaaaah!”
Screams of pain spread amid the smell of cooking flesh.
That was right.
The jars had been filled with hot oil.
‘I’ll teach you myself.’
Why sieges had been called hell in the age of blades.
＊＊＊＊＊
As soon as signs of the Great Invasion became known, the first thing I did was procure large amounts of oil and arrows.
There were no more useful supplies for defending a fortress.
“Fire.”
At my command, Walter and the archers loosed their arrows in unison.
Whether it was because their skills had improved through relentless training or because the enemy was packed together like a swarm of dogs, almost every arrow found its mark.
“Urk!”
“Argh!”
A rain of arrows poured down.
The enemy gritted their teeth and answered with thrown axes, but...
Thunk! Thunk!
They struck the shields and failed to achieve anything.
“Argh! Hot!”
“D-Don’t push!”
Arrows flew at them from above, while the ladders and ground had become slick with oil.
‘And when they manage to climb all the way up, we just pour more oil on them.’
From the enemy’s perspective, it was enough to make their hearts burst and tear apart.
Any normal commander would have withdrawn, reorganized, and searched for another way over the wall, but their commander refused to give up.
“You cowardly Imperials! Stop hiding like cowards and fight honorably!”
They had brought several times our numbers and were telling us to fight fair. What a shameless bastard.
Hoping that the commander’s missing conscience and intelligence would return as soon as possible, I ordered the oil refilled.
“Looking at them, they still seem full of fight. Pour more.”
“Yes, sir!”
As we kept dousing them with oil, the barbarians climbing the ladders screamed and fell away.
Whenever they tried to climb the wall, we poured oil on them and shot them with arrows.
It was simple, but against barbarians who knew nothing of siege warfare, it was highly effective.
The proof was that more than three hundred enemies had already died while we had not suffered a single casualty.
I wanted to keep fighting this way.
‘The problem is that it isn’t realistic.’
The enemy were people, not beasts or computers.
No matter how thickheaded they were, they would eventually realize they had no chance and withdraw.
‘They’re nearly at their limit.’
The enemy had begun showing signs of slowly retreating, so I decided to bring out the final gift we had prepared.
“Walter.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Fire now.”
As soon as the order came down, Walter and the archers released their arrows as though they had been waiting for it.
Whoosh!
The arrows spread wide like a net, each tip carrying a faint flame.
“D-Damn it!”
“Run!”
The barbarians saw the flaming arrows cutting through the air and hurried to flee, but they were already too late.
Whoosh.
The oil we had spread so diligently met the flaming arrows and erupted into fierce flames.
“Gaaaah!”
“S-Save me!”
Fire engulfed the enemy in an instant.
A dreadful smell brushed my nose as black smoke rose and a scene of chaos unfolded.
Even considering that I had created this horror...
‘It’s terrible.’
That did not mean I felt guilty.
If I could not kill them here, I would be the one to die.
With that brilliant blaze, our first battle with the barbarians came to an end.
The enemy had suffered roughly a thousand casualties from the arrow barrage and fire attack. Meanwhile, we had none, aside from one soldier who was injured after falling while carrying oil and arrows.
It was a crushing victory.
Considering the advantage of defending the fortress and the preparations we had made, it was only natural.
To further raise our soldiers’ morale, I opened up the food stores and held a feast. Of course, we could not neglect our defenses, so we assigned separate soldiers to keep watch on the wall and planned to give them food later.
After praising the soldiers, I called the commanders together while drinking the cheap strong liquor Dihelm had brought as a celebratory drink.
“Thanks to your hard work, we achieved a great victory today. But it is still too early to relax.”
In truth, we could defeat Kardum’s forces simply by dragging things out.
They were bandits who had attacked the Empire because they lacked food. The longer time passed, the more favorable things became for us.
However, the enemies before us were not our only enemies.
“We aren’t as badly off as they are, but our situation is hardly comfortable either.”
“...Is it because the Northern Army is still holding the front?”
“That’s right.”
There were still many barbarians ravaging the rear, and above all, the enemy main force facing the Left Army and Central Army at the front remained.
“We must finish them as quickly as possible and join the main force if we want to stop the north from falling. So I intend to end this battle as soon as I can. If you have a good plan, speak.”
The soldiers exchanged awkward looks and held their tongues.
They could not think of any suitable strategy.
I had expected as much, so it did not matter greatly.
“May I offer a suggestion?”
Dihelm raised his hand with a meaningful smile.
His stratagem was what I had wanted from the beginning.
“Do you have a clever plan?”
“It is not quite a clever plan. A method to wipe out the enemy occurred to me.”
“Oh?”
A plan proposed by Dihelm, the Iron-Blooded Lord Jeg’s resourceful adviser and a genius born of the Empire.
I could not help looking forward to it.
“What is this plan?”
“A fire attack.”
“...What?”
We used that today.
He wanted to reuse it?
‘Did I expect too much?’
I cleared my throat and answered with a somewhat disappointed expression.
“There are limits to wiping out the enemy with a fire attack alone. Besides, they’ve already suffered from it once. They won’t readily fall for the same tactic again.”
“You are correct, my lord. However, what I intend is not a simple fire attack to burn the enemy to death.”
When I tilted my head and looked at him, Dihelm’s eyes curved like a serpent’s.
“Today, we burned their bodies. Tomorrow, I intend to burn their minds.”
Burn their minds?
The moment I heard that, something I had experienced in the game came to mind.
‘Could he be...’
I could not be certain.
But if my guess was right, the enemy would experience hell tomorrow.
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