Chapter 78 : Rotation
Chapter 78. Rotation
“Montjoie!”
“Saint Denis!!”
As I walked among the soldiers shouting “Montjoie Saint Denis,” the battle cry of Frangia, I checked their morale while gathering information.
“I thought Lui, the son of the Sun King, was a coward, but I’ve changed my mind. He’s one hell of a speaker.”
“Looks like his father’s blood didn’t go anywhere.”
“Well, I don't care about any of that; I just hope we get to loot. How much do you think we can make if we ransack the capital?”
“Stop it. The Dauphin has to be crowned King in the capital; do you really think we’ll be allowed to loot it? Maybe if it’s the rebels’ wealth, though.”
“I hope the rebels have a lot of money.”
Though some were grumbling, morale was not bad.
“What unit are you guys from?”
“Us? We’ve been the Dauphin’s army from the start. What about you?”
“He was with Baron Joffy’s unit, and I was with Baron Arpino’s. They told us to join the 12th Regiment.”
“Yeah, this is the place.”
They had come from completely different places, but it seemed the capable general had done a fine job distributing the units. This was more than enough to put up a fight.
‘He gathered these fragmented units well.’
At that moment, Yul spotted a courier galloping in from afar and immediately returned to the high command’s marching zone.
There, Lui was riding on horseback, marching with a pouty expression as he complained about the scorching sun. At his side were the rigid soldier Godfrey Bachet, his friend Arnaud Junzé, Martin Ferrand, and newly recruited talents such as Sir Guillaume Belmont, the Knight Commander of the Order of the Crimson Watchers.
“Urgent report! An urgent report! The usurper king of Lotharingia has left the capital and is advancing toward the Belsia Plains!”
“He left…… the capital?”
It seemed the enemy, too, had competent strategists.
Since there were signs of strong dissatisfaction and rebellion within the capital, they likely intended to crush us with raw numbers.
Before shouting bravely, Lui looked around. No one’s expression was good.
The enemy’s forces numbered twenty thousand, and it was said that a considerable number of mages were among them.
“Why did they come out onto the plains?”
“The enemy force appears to be around twenty-two thousand. That’s roughly seven thousand more than our troops.”
“Fortunately, the Ivory Tower has declared neutrality in this conflict, but mages have been conscripted from various magic academies. There will likely be many war mages.”
At the staff’s reports, Lui let out a low hum, then looked at Yul.
‘We’ll win.’
Yul nodded confidently. At that, Lui raised his voice, like a spy receiving a coded signal.
“So! Are we to lose over such a small difference?! Are the talents I personally selected going to crumble here?!”
“No. A difference of seven thousand troops can be overcome.”
“The Knight Order is always ready. As long as there are no mages from the Ivory Tower, we can handle them.”
“Then we march to meet the enemy! Wrap them up neatly in their past glory and bury them!”
Moved by Lui’s bold voice, the sense of defeat that had lingered just moments ago vanished.
‘Watching this, he really is absurdly good with words.’
Was his oratorical skill and appearance what he inherited from the Sun King?
In exchange, he lacked almost everything else, but that could be overcome as long as he had the ability to trust his advisors.
If there was a talent belonging to Lui Trombon, the son of the Sun King Jean Trombon, this was it.
* * *
For the past 10 years, surprisingly, unlike Britain, magic engineering did not develop at all in Frangia.
Even so, most infantry were armed with flintlock muskets, and those alone were recognized as the mainstream weapon.
There was also a large number of cavalry. These units avoided frontal engagements, instead grinding down artillery through mobile warfare, or retreating to massacre infantry that had lost their will to fight, racking up their merits that way.
If you charged head-on, even knights capable of using aura would be riddled with musket balls and wiped out.
The Order of the Crimson Watchers was a fully independent detachment, tasked with eliminating the mages who would unleash magical bombardment from within the enemy lines.
Even though Yul had briefly supplied Krelsite ten years ago, there still wasn’t much of it in the world, so they were simply wearing sturdy magical metal armor.
They were the hidden card to oppose the mages.
From Yul’s perspective, Major General Godfrey’s strategy was excellent as well—everything would depend on how the enemy moved.
On the opposite ridge, twenty-two thousand enemy troops were deployed. Both sides had set up camp at a great distance, backs to their hills, beyond the reach of bombardment.
The identity of the enemy general was still unknown.
‘If it looks like we’re going to lose, I’ll have to intervene.’
Perhaps because he had lived so long as a sea creature that had to kill to survive, Yul felt no resistance at all to the idea of killing humans.
‘Hm?’
Around then, Yul sensed that something had happened to Lucian across the sea.
'To be able to feel the change in emotions from this distance...'
Is it something truly dangerous? The excitement level is too high.
Yul closed his eyes and focused for a moment, borrowing a portion of Lucian’s vision.
It looked like Lucian had saved Frenda Utenia after she fell from a third-floor window.
Seeing a large mat laid out below, it seemed like some kind of safety measure—another experimental accident, perhaps.
[Th-thank you for saving me, senior.]
[W-wait a second, Frenda. You’re too close.]
Lucian’s heart rate was skyrocketing as the distance between them became far too close. Yul immediately cut the connection.
‘Son of a—’
For no clear reason, Yul felt irritated. While someone here was fighting a war that would decide a country’s fate, they were busy flirting!
Did the Beltain Family have some trait where romance accelerated explosively whenever Yul wasn’t around?
Yul immediately strode up beside Lui and shouted.
"War! It is absolutely war!"
“R-right! War it is!”
"Go and shout while kicking the backsides of those who are hesitant from the fear of war!"
“Hyah!”
Lui spurred forward.
“War! It is war, without questionnnn! Kill them all and take everything they have!”
When the Dauphin himself stepped forward with sword in hand, countless men raised their weapons.
“Waaaaaahhhhhhh!”
The clash of the great armies began. Both sides’ troops started advancing in formation.
It was a line battle.
Instead of a spyglass, Yul used his enhanced vision to observe the enemy general far in the distance.
A boy king, draped in gold, sat in the place of honor. Beside him stood an old noble with graying whiskers.
‘So they’re committed.’
The boy king and the nobles beneath him…… or rather, a seasoned noble manipulating the boy king.
According to the intelligence, that old noble was likely Marquis Ahamdus, the one proclaiming the restoration of the Kingdom of Lotharingia.
With signs of rebellion brewing within the capital, had both the puppet and the mastermind come out together?
“Advance! Advance!”
To the sound of the military band, the advancing soldiers closed ranks and faced each other.
A line battle, at a glance, looked like a battle of fools.
They align in positions close enough to be showered by bullets right in front of their noses, and then fire at each other without caring whether their comrades die or fall.
However, armies that used this method overwhelmingly defeated those that did not.
Then, what is the most important thing in a line battle where both sides use the same tactics?
It was discipline.
The discipline to maintain the formation without fleeing, reload, and fire again even if comrades died or they were hit by bullets.
Discipline was indeed the attack power of the military in this era.
Then what about the defense power? It was morale. If morale dropped due to an increasing number of dead or wounded, the formation would collapse, and they would fall prey to the cavalry while fleeing.
“Aim! Fire!”
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Numerous soldiers, both allies and enemies, fell.
‘The army Godfrey Bachet reorganized is functioning properly.’
He had reinforced the noncommissioned officers significantly, which formed the foundation of high discipline.
“Fire! Even if you die, fire!”
Rat-tat-tat!
Furthermore, this side had the legitimacy the enemy lacked. And the promise of a thick reward.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
In the clash of anvil against anvil, the Dauphin's army was winning by a narrow margin.
As their troop numbers gradually decreased, the enemy cavalry began to slowly emerge from the other side.
Simultaneously, the allied cavalry also moved.
“Montjoie, Saint Denis!”
The cavalry raided toward the enemy lines. The cavalry units clashing with the enemy scattered in confusion.
A fierce cavalry battle.
As Yul observed quietly, this side still held the upper hand.
'What, I don't even need to step in?'
They were winning. He didn't know the exact reason, but they held the advantage in every area.
‘The Major General skill? Soldier training? Reinforced non-commissioned officers?? Lui’s speech?’
With similar equipment on both sides, those factors must have made the difference.
Then—
Tii-ting-ting-ting-ting!
Realizing they were being pushed back, enemy war mages rode out from their lines.
As a massive barrier unfolded in the air, the allied volley fire was blocked.
However, as if the command had anticipated this, a shout rang out from their ranks.
“Fix bayonets!”
They intended to break through the barrier with their bodies. Soldiers affixed blades to their muskets in preparation for a charge.
And before the infantry surged forward, warhorses charged first toward the enemy lines.
“Order of the Crimson Watchers! Charge! Target the mages and execute them!”
“Montjoie! Saint Denis!”
At Knight Commander Guillaume’s shout, the knights lowered their visors and began their charge.
They smashed straight into the enemy line, crashing through troops who were hastily fixing bayonets, and broke through.
Seeing them cut through the infantry, Yul truly felt the power of the Knight Order.
‘Is this how tactics in this era unfold once a line battle reaches its end?’
The power of knights far exceeded his expectations.
Was the moment the firing phase ended the very moment that unleashed their overwhelming strength?
It seemed knights were emerging on the opposing side as well, but they were utterly trampled.
It looked as though all that remained was to cut off their breath.
However, a terrifying explosion erupted in the center of the Knight Order's wedge formation.
Horse and rider alike were hurled into the air. Those flung upward were usually missing one or more limbs—some were missing all of them.
‘I can feel the flow of magic. A shared spell.’
An explosion spell—one of the shared fire-element magics.
‘The number of mages is overwhelming.’
The number of war mages was much higher than on this side. They were likely mages conscripted from the capital.
‘As expected, in wars of this era, mages are practically strategic weapons.’
Even powerful knights became sacrifices in an instant when they met mages on the battlefield.
After taking magical bombardment, the knights scattered, unable to maintain their powerful breakthrough formation.
Soon, mages began indiscriminately bombarding the allied soldiers with magic.
“Y-Yul, are we really going to win this?”
"Of course. I guess I'll have to step in after all. Leave some clothes for me to wear."
Leaving those words behind, Yul removed the hood that had been concealing his forehead.
“Dispel Polymorph.”
His true form was revealed. Yul immediately took flight, revealing himself at the very center of the battlefield.
"A gem on the forehead? He's a Seaborn!?"
"What? Why is there a Seaborn in the center of our army?"
“He’s flying through the air?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that!”
A wave of murmurs spread among the masses.
'Now, shall I try to kill three birds with one stone?'
He intended to use as little power as possible to break through the enemy lines. Then, after neutralizing the mages, if possible, capture both the boy king and the old man lurking behind him.