WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Asakusa
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◈ Veteran of the Northern Front ◈
Chapter 39: Rear Guard Rescue Operation (2)
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Melton, the commander overseeing one of the Rear Army’s supply bases, trembled with fury as they watched the barbarians rush in like hunting hounds.
‘How can they be such beasts...?’
The enemy’s momentum far exceeded expectations.
‘We came out after hearing that soldiers from a nearby support unit were under attack, but...’
Far from rescuing them, they were about to lie dead beside them.
The soldiers were being torn apart by the enemy assault.
Melton clenched a fist and shouted.
“Do not fall back! We outnumber them!”
Melton did everything possible to encourage the soldiers as their commander, but it was useless.
The difference in skill between them and the barbarians was simply too great to rely on superior numbers alone.
As if proving that fact, their formation soon began to crumble under the onslaught.
‘...It’s over.’
The sight of enemies charging toward them with murderous expressions made Melton collapse to the ground without realizing it.
Faced with approaching death, all strength had drained from Melton’s legs.
Then, at that moment, unfamiliar soldiers appeared behind the enemy.
‘W-Where did they come from...?’
Even while moving swiftly, they did not disrupt their formation. As a commander, Melton found the sight utterly chilling.
Then,
“Entire army! Rescue our allies and slaughter every enemy threatening the Empire!”
At the command of the man who appeared to be their commander, the soldiers rushed as one into the barbarians’ rear.
＊＊＊＊＊
While the barbarians’ attention was fixed on the Rear Army,
we formed a wedge and charged toward the enemy’s rear.
“Dihelm, take command of the soldiers with Max.”
“Understood.”
After entrusting the soldiers to Dihelm,
I immediately pushed ahead with Marcus and Peiron at the front.
No matter how fierce the barbarians were, stopping a charge led by knight-class combatants was no easy task.
Slash!
As Peiron swung his halberd, the heads of nearby enemies flew through the air.
“Ha ha ha! Come at me, all of you!”
Perhaps he had been itching for a fight all this time.
He radiated a menacing aura, flaunting his presence.
As Peiron butchered enemies without pause, spraying blood everywhere, his martial prowess was more than worthy of being called a match for a hundred men.
And that was not all.
‘If Peiron is a raging fire that burns his enemies,’
then Marcus is cold water, a massive wave that sweeps everything away.
Slice.
The spear and sword in his hands smoothly cut down enemy after enemy.
‘He’s practically a machine.’
The sight of him piling up corpses with such an emotionless expression was terrifying in an entirely different way from Peiron.
‘I can’t just stand here watching, either.’
I smashed in the heads of the enemies blocking my path with Black Axe.
Thud!
As I drove forward with unstoppable force, a barbarian who had been waiting for an opening rushed at my side.
Grab!
I casually seized the barbarian’s face with a hand as broad as a pot lid.
“Ghk...”
“Good attempt, but you picked the wrong opponent.”
“Gahhh!”
“Hup!”
I drew up mana and tightened my grip.
Crunch!
With the sound of bones being crushed, the barbarian’s face crumpled like a tin can.
The surrounding barbarians witnessed the sight and stopped in their tracks.
“M-Monster...”
A monster.
They were not wrong.
At first, I had hesitated somewhat.
But now, even killing someone with my bare hands stirred nothing in me.
‘It must mean I’ve grown accustomed to this world.’
In my previous life, I might have been disgusted by what I had become.
But,
“I don’t care if I’m a monster to you lot.”
Warm to allies,
mercilessly cruel to enemies.
Was that not how one survived in a troubled age?
And these were the ones who had started a war on their own and brutally massacred innocent civilians. I was willing to become a monster a hundred or a thousand times over.
Crack!
After sending the barbarians who had lost their will to fight to the afterlife, I caught my breath and surveyed the battlefield.
Their rear had been attacked, and the enemy was scattering in every direction, getting picked off one by one.
“You! I am the eldest son of Vank and a warrior of the Moonwind Tribe. I will take you on... Ghk!”
“You talk too much.”
The commander who should have been restoring order had his head taken by Marcus in the blink of an eye.
‘It’s over.’
Their formation had already been completely wrecked by the attack from behind, and their morale was at rock bottom. Now that their commander was dead as well, the battle was practically over.
“D-Damn it! Retreat!”
“Get out of here and join the other tribes!”
The barbarians fled in disorder without even forming proper ranks.
Retreat required even greater caution than charging the enemy.
‘No matter how skilled each of them may be...’
Like that, they were nothing but a disorganized rabble.
Easy prey.
“We will pursue the enemy. Commanders of each unit, quickly restore your formations and move out at once!”
As soon as the enemy began retreating, Dihelm issued the pursuit order as if he had been waiting for it.
As befitted someone skilled in strategy, he had assessed their condition and sought to gain further gains.
At the command, the soldiers began chasing the enemy with bloodshot eyes.
“You bastards! Don’t dawdle. Kill even one more of them! Remember that the ones who leave alive today may threaten your lives tomorrow!”
At Max’s venomous shout, the soldiers hunted the barbarians down even more relentlessly.
“Die, you damned barbarian!”
“Ghk!”
The barbarians fell like autumn leaves beneath the soldiers’ and mercenaries’ hands. The one-sided pursuit only ended after the enemy crossed the ridge and entered the forest.
“Stop! Pursuing them any farther is too dangerous!”
If we chased them into the forest, where visibility was poor, the soldiers might suffer losses. I decisively called off the pursuit.
‘There’s no need to get greedy.’
We had already achieved our goal of driving off the enemy and rescuing our allies.
I pulled the soldiers back and went to find the commander who had been leading the Rear Army.
“Are you all right?”
“Y-Yes... Thanks to you, we survived.”
“I am Ubel Graum, the one overseeing Camilla Fortress. My rank is Commander of Five Hundred.”
“I am Melton, Commander of a Thousand, in charge of the Rear Army’s Seventh Supply Base. Thank you sincerely for saving the lives of my soldiers and me.”
I had worried that Melton might use a higher rank to demand command or make a scene. But despite learning that my rank was lower, Melton remained respectful and sincerely thanked me, so Melton did not seem to be that sort of hopeless case.
I asked what had happened.
“How did you end up clashing with barbarians in such empty plains?”
“Well... A scout reported that soldiers from a nearby unit were under attack, so we set out to help, but...”
So they had been beaten instead.
Having roughly grasped the situation, I decided to finish dealing with the aftermath before encountering more enemies.
“What are the soldiers’ casualties?”
Melton answered with a grim expression.
“...We will need to confirm the exact number, but I believe there are around a thousand.”
A thousand casualties in that short time?
Of the enemy’s two thousand, fewer than five hundred had escaped alive, but that result had only been possible because we attacked their rear at the right moment.
‘Even taking into account that Rear Army soldiers are less skilled than frontline soldiers, the losses are too severe. The barbarians may be battered, but they’re still formidable?’
Once again, I was reminded of how formidable they were in close-quarters combat.
‘Should I at least be grateful that our own casualties are almost nonexistent?’
Only a few mercenaries had died.
The soldiers had suffered no notable losses.
After letting out a brief sigh, I asked Melton to accompany us.
“We plan to drive off the barbarians disrupting the rear and gather our forces before supporting the main army. If you are willing, can you lend us your strength?”
“Hah! Most of the Rear Army is so overwhelmed by the enemy’s momentum that they are too busy protecting their garrisons to send reinforcements. Yet you came all the way here to rescue allies. It is truly admirable.”
“You flatter me. Did you not come out here to help your soldiers as well, Melton?”
“...It was merely a commoner’s rash courage. I had no idea how strong the barbarians were. I only acted on the simple thought that they were not far away, so we should save them.”
Melton rebuked himself with a bitter expression.
Melton felt responsible for the soldiers’ deaths.
Then Melton looked at me with determined eyes.
“I do not know how much help we will be, but we will do our utmost. So please take charge of the soldiers in my stead.”
“...You mean you are handing command over to me?”
“That is correct.”
“...”
I had never expected Melton to hand over command.
‘It seems the battle earlier was an even greater shock than I thought.’
I felt sorry for Melton, but taking command was beneficial to me as well, so I gladly accepted.
“Understood. I will do everything I can to live up to your trust. If I fall short in any way, please point it out.”
Our force had unexpectedly grown to around twenty-five hundred.
‘This is a good start.’
Feeling pleased, I asked Melton to guide us to the garrison.
“The garrison?”
“Yes.”
The soldiers were exhausted after force-marching from Camilla Fortress.
More importantly, we had little in the way of military rations left.
We had only brought the minimum amount of food from the beginning so we could move quickly.
After hearing this, Melton exclaimed.
“Oh... I had not considered that. Do not worry. We are a supply base, after all. We have plenty of rations and barracks, so there will be no issue with resting.”
“Then I will leave it to you.”
Having safely completed our first battle in the rear, we followed Melton toward the Seventh Supply Base.
Three hours later,
the soldiers and I reached our destination.
“This is the Seventh Supply Base.”
“So this is...”
The position was located halfway up a mountain.
A stream flowed below, while steep mountains and trees formed a screen behind it, so the terrain itself was not bad.
However,
“It was not built with war in mind. It was built to link efficiently with the other rear supply bases, so compared to other units, it is somewhat lacking in defense.”
“It seems that way.”
The outer perimeter of the supply base consisted of three-meter stone walls and palisades, barely worthy of being called fortifications.
‘If we station archers on the stone walls and use arrows to keep the enemy from approaching, we could hold out somehow, but...’
The structure could probably hold off an enemy twice our size at most.
It seemed difficult to hold off an enemy three times our number or more.
‘If this were not a supply base with abundant supplies, it would have fallen long ago.’
After assessing the garrison, I followed Melton into the supply base with the soldiers.
“We will stay here for a day, so make sure everyone gets some rest. Understood?”
“Yes!”
Since the unit’s defenses were poor, I planned to quickly organize the forces and gather supplies before the enemy arrived, then move to another unit.
But the next day,
when the sun had climbed high into the sky,
a problem arose.
“Commander, the enemy!”
Jackson, who had been taking turns scouting the area around the fortress with soldiers from the scout unit, hurriedly reported the barbarians’ appearance.
“About six thousand barbarians are heading for this supply base.”
“Hah...!”
Around thirty thousand barbarians had infiltrated the rear.
With six thousand approaching, it was fair to say that most of the barbarians in the area had gathered here.
“It seems the enemies who fled yesterday joined a nearby group of barbarians.”
“...They came for revenge.”
I had expected them to return, but not this quickly.
‘Tch. I had planned to leave the supply base and gather the other forces in the rear, but those damned bastards ruined it all.’
So what should I do now?
‘If we drag this out, the enemy could call in more allies, and the entire supply base may be surrounded. In that case, a quick battle using the stone walls and the supplies here is our only answer.’
Considering the barbarians’ skill in close-quarters combat and their numbers, we would suffer heavy losses.
But there was no other choice.
‘For now, this is the best option.’
Just as I had made my decision and was about to speak,
Plip.
A single raindrop fell from the sky and touched my cheek.
‘Rain?’
Wait!
I suddenly remembered something I had forgotten and stared blankly up at the sky.
“...Dihelm.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“How long has it been since the farmers sowed wheat for the autumn harvest?”
“It varies somewhat by region, but even at the latest, they would all have finished sowing last month. But why do you suddenly ask...?”
“...I see. I had forgotten that.”
“Pardon?”
There was no time to answer his question.
“Gather all the commanders at once! We will meet the enemy here.”
“Have you thought of a plan?”
“Yes. Place archers, spearmen, and shield bearers on the stone walls. And bring Melton to me.”
“Understood.”
Before long, Dihelm brought Melton.
“I heard the news. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“There is something I would like to confirm. Do you know how far the waterway in front of the supply base runs?”
“Do you mean the stream flowing ahead?”
“Yes.”
“It is shallow, but it runs quite a distance. It would take an hour on foot to reach the upper stream.”
Is that so?
This time, I pointed toward the mountain path behind the position.
“Is there a route from there to the upper stream?”
“There is, though the path is rather rough. But why do you ask...?”
“To wipe out the enemy in one stroke.”
With that, I knew what needed to be done.
“There is something you need to do for me, Melton.”
“M-Me?”
“First, reinforce the warehouse where the military rations are stored. Seal it thoroughly so that not a drop of water can get in.”
“Pardon? Why the warehouse all of a sudden...?”
“I will explain later. Please hurry.”
“U-Understood.”
Once Melton had left, I turned to Dihelm.
“Dihelm, I will give you the scout unit and five hundred soldiers. Take the mountain path to the upper stream and...”
“...You want us to prepare that?”
After hearing my orders, Dihelm frowned, clearly unable to understand.
“I understand your intention, but I apologize. Realistically, this plan cannot succeed.”
I understood why he reacted that way.
The order I had just given truly sounded like a fantasy.
“Dihelm, do you believe in gods?”
“I am not particularly devout.”
“Then what do you think would happen if you saw a god deliver divine punishment with your own eyes?”
“I do not know why you ask, but I believe I would be deeply moved.”
Then he would see it this time.
The divine punishment of a natural disaster that Skadi, the goddess of the North, would inflict upon those lawless barbarians.
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