Chapter 167
What kind of country is this country? (1)
The entire battlefield was filled with shouts as knights and the soldiers of the Allied Northern Forces called out Balahard’s name. The palace knights and arquebusiers who lived only for the glory and well-being of the royal family were shouting the name of Winter Castle instead of the name of the Leonbergers, if only for the moment.
It was their own homage to their choice of rejecting spring and plunging into the bleak winter, and their mourning for the infinite possibilities that they had given up – for these warriors could have escaped this frozen land and headed to the warm realm of the south.
And they freely chose winter, with the lords and soldiers of the Allied Northern Forces having made the same choice. And as everyone cried out the name of Balahard, the fierce resistance put up by the orcish war legion was slowly drawing to an end.
All that was left now were the orcs, whose numbers were not enough to constitute a single legion. The forces of Winter Castle surrounded them and attacked them with ferocity.
I was there, aiding them.
“For Balahard!” and I cried out the same name as them.
And it wasn’t long before we could sever the neck of the orcish force, which had resisted until the end.
There were no shouts of victory, for the knights and I turned around after defeating the orcs and headed for an area upon the snowfield as if it was our promised duty.
We headed to the place where the battle between Overlord Urdu and the Masters was in full swing.
‘Klang! Klang!’ there was a great clashing of weapons, and the frozen earth was furrowed by Urdu’s spear blazing with red fervor, a weapon which possessed great power.
Yet, that was all: Urdu’s spear did not even touch the tips of the Masters’ hairs. His resistance was without meaning: He only dug through the earth and sliced into the air.
I kept my sword sheathed as I watched the battle.
There it was: The miserable figure of an old orc, a being born with a royal spirit who had once been called the King of the Orcs while he led Warlords into battle.
And this beast now screamed in pain, wreathed in flames that he could not distinguish, flames ignited by my qi through a mere [Extraordinary] attack.
There was evidence that the spirit of the Overlord had been damaged beyond his control. Now he was simply a monster with a strong body and fervor, and the strength left in him was nothing in front of the joint efforts of the Masters. Their Aura Blades were cleaving into his flesh, but Urdu roared and resisted all the more fiercely. Yet, the more he resisted, the greater was the intensity with which the flames of my true spirit burned upon his body.
Then, at some point, the inferno completely swallowed him.
‘Aah aah ah ah!’ with a terrible scream, he swung his spear at random, and Arwen shattered that fierce weapon of his. One of his flaming forearms was severed, and Eli cut off a leg as the old orc screamed on.
The remaining leg was parted from Urdu’s body by Adelia.
Nogisa’s blade sliced across Urdu’s eyes.
‘Eh eh eh eh!’ the beast cried out in pain and terror as he sank to the snow, supporting himself with the only arm left to him. Meister Surkara had been about to attack, yet he stopped his axe mid-swing.
“This is not my job.”
Then the dwarf spat on the orc, said that he had sated his appetite, and turned around.
As if the Masters had undertaken a silent oath, they stepped back.
‘Ksrchk~ Ksrch~’ Vincent, gasping for breath, approached the fallen orc.
“Sa- Save me! Spare me…” before Urdu could continue his pathetic begging, Vincent drew back his blade, and the sword of the Balahard family, the symbol of the count, pierced into the back of Urdu’s neck.
The beast’s mouth gaped open as breath escaped from it, and Vincent twisted his sword sharply.
The orc’s head was severed, and its body sagged into a great puddle of blood.
The hideous, half-scorched face of the coward lay upon the snow, the face of a craven beast who had pursued a life of selfish ambition until the last minute.
Vincent staggered forward and picked up the bloodied head.
“Behold!”
Vincent closed his eyes for a while, then opened them. He raised the Overlord’s head high and shouted, “Victory is ours!”
Knights and soldiers heard the count’s roar and burst into shouts.
“You killed the king of the orcs!”
“We won!”
They banged their bloody swords and spears upon their chests and gave frantic shouts proclaiming victory.
“We drove off the monsters!”
The Allied Northern Forces and royal reinforcements shouted like madmen.
[-] [Poetry of Divor… [-]
[-] Connected to [Poetry of Domination] … [-]
So great and deep was their roar that it even deafened the message that resonated within my mind.
I blocked the message, for I did not wish to hear such a soft thing – right now, I wanted to hear the shouts proclaiming the hallowed victory that all gathered had won without compromise.
I captured the image of those crying out in triumph and blinking away tears – I captured that image in my memory. I wouldn’t miss a single moment.
In the future, some might mock today’s triumph as a worthless victory claimed by fools. Among those who were here today, there might even be some who would regret what was done.
They would ask: Is it not possible to put aside pride and hate for the sake of a greater cause?
They would say: Forgiveness is worth more than any form of vengeance.
And if anyone truly spoke such words, I would answer them in this manner: For whose cause did these warriors fight, and who deserves to even dare belittle the choice they had made?
While everyone was enjoying the warm sun of lands without war, only these warriors faced the harsh winter.
Forgiveness and revenge were certainly the choices offered upon this day. Sayings that absolution has more value than vengeance are words merely spoken from the mouths of those who have not experienced the perils and insults that these warriors had faced.
Today’s victory would never be a futile one. The decision made today was not foolish. And these warriors did not ponder overmuch; they just chose.
Instead of choosing a momentary peace by compromising with a coward, they chose to honor their own history and their own cause. In the name of a cause that anyone would understand, those gathered here, in their simplicity, chose not to ignore the cry of their hearts.
Even if their choice would cause them to stand facing the blizzard and its wind once more – could anyone dismiss their resolve as the crudity of fools?
If there was such a person, I would visit them myself and crush their snout with my knuckles.
I had already seen too many who shied away from great sacrifice for the sake of immediate peace.
Nobles who had lost their pride, knights who believed that they were defeated. A monarch who had lost his spirit.
And these are those whose hearts had been broken in the name of a peaceful cause; they are the ones who unconsciously step back whenever the name of the empire is uttered.
There are so many of these craven souls in this kingdom.
It is of great benefit to me that there are those who had kept their strength to the very end in Leonberg, for the path I have to walk is a thorny path that cannot be journeyed upon by making compromises.
“We won!” came Vincent’s fierce roar as he raised the Overlord’s head high.
I studied Vincent, and the momentum and energy of a Master that had shone so brightly from him a while ago could no longer be felt. That great presence had disappeared as if it had been an illusion.
I knew that this was natural, for Vincent’s awakening was not complete.
Perhaps it had been a temporary change in him as a response to the creation of that great war poem, or maybe it was a momentary brilliance, a brief appearance of the avenger’s flames that blazed in Vincent’s true soul.
I couldn’t be sure of anything right now.
Yet I believed that, even if it was only a moment of brilliance, Vincent’s body and soul will remember this day and will grow constantly. And sooner or later, the day will come when Vincent will blaze with the same brightness as he did today.
It would be the reward for the torment and suffering he had endured in his previous life; it was the glory promised to an uncompromising man. And it wasn’t just completion and restoration that was promised to Vincent.
“If he had made a compromise with that greenskin monster, no dwarf would ever have come to this fortress again,” said Meister Surkara as he came to me. “Because we never keep bonds of friendship with hypocrites who weaken their will for brief gains.”
The dwarf’s tone was blunt, but it contained a tone of satisfaction that he could not hide.
“These warriors, their minds are like flames, and their souls are like iron. We dwarves like to have friends like that.”
“Friend,” I muttered. It was no common thing to hear a dwarf calling someone their friend.
Dwarves are stubborn craftsmen, and they know no compromise, for they live lives of pure aspiration.
For them, to compromise is a grave sin.
Dwarves do not recognize their allies as friends simply because they fought together, and the dwarves do not consider them friends merely because they show goodwill through numerous gifts and favors.
The dwarves are very demanding; they are a race who have their standards and keep to them.
Those called friends by the dwarves are lucky indeed, and if they are in great peril, the dwarves will actively support them as if they were aiding their own people.
“I’m going to tell tales of this day as soon as I return home,” said Surkara.
“I thought Meisters never made friends,” said I.
“Aye, being a friend is hard. To help a friend, you sometimes have to sweep out the barn and haul some heavy ass. But that’s my burden, friend prince, not yours.”
I could not stop myself from laughing.
The blessing of iron and flame given to these honest men of the north by the dwarf was not something I had expected.
* * *
Rangers rescued the wounded and recovered the remains of the dead by scouring the snow that had fallen and settled during the night. The casualties among the rangers were lower than expected, thanks to the knights fighting upon the walls from the very beginning. However, the damage suffered by the soldiers of the Allied Northern Forces could not be ignored.
The allied forces had been kept in reserve and only entered direct battle once the war neared its end, once everyone charged out in the counter-offensive. Nevertheless, they were completely caught off guard by the orcs that had risen from the snow and so had suffered enormous casualties.
In the short period of time between their charge and the coming of the palace knights and royal infantry to stem the chaos, the allied northerners lost thirty percent of their entire force.
The damage was too great for them to merely cheer the hard-won victory. In the end, they knew that there was a need for reorganization and replenishment of their ranks, so they decided to leave Winter Castle and return to their territories.
“Please call us at any time. We will leave everything and rush to your aid.”
“Winter Castle is not alone. Never forget that we stand behind you.”
Their faces were sincere upon the day of their departure. The spirit reigning among them seemed not to be one of regretting the enormous losses that they had suffered.
Even if they only spent one winter together with the forces of Balahard, it seemed as if they had completely regained the true fighting spirit of the north, which they had lost during their years of indolence.
Vincent expressed his deepest appreciation for their goodwill and friendship and decided that he would ride with them for a day upon the road that left from the South Gate.
I could see that Vincent saw it as well: A lot was lost in this war, but we had also gained a great deal. Indeed, it was so.
And now neighbors who rarely showed their faces clung to the walls and gates damaged by the fierce battles – they were the dwarves. One hundred of the two hundred who had battled here remained behind to aid in repairing the damaged defenses.
“Where the hell was our artillery support? If you’re going to do a job, then you should be properly trained in it! You buggers could’ve chucked the cannons over the walls and done more damage than you did!”
Some of the dwarves were frustrated by the clumsy technique of the rangers who operated the cannons, so they taught them how to use the great iron guns.
“What you have here is technology that is at least three hundred years old. Oh, it would have been quite useful during those times, but not now! It hurts the pride of our entire race that you so proudly use such obsolete guns in war.”
Another dwarf wished to improve the hook guns used by the arquebusiers of the royal infantry.
“I bet you won’t be able to use these for even a few shots more. Some of them have already burst at the muzzle! If you use them a few more times, the others will also break.”
Nogisa looked troubled. It was a welcome sight to see dwarven hands upon weapons long ago forged by dwarves, but the mere existence of the hand cannons was a royal secret, so I knew that Nogisa saw many difficulties in entrusting the guns to the dwarves for improvement.
“This is a rare opportunity, so just close your eyes and let it pass.”
I went ahead and persuaded Nogisa. He knew well which outcome would be more beneficial to the royal family, so he accepted my persuasive words, even if he pretended that my logic had not won out.
Vincent returned after seeing the northern lords off and was quite embarrassed to see the sudden changes that the industrious dwarves had brought about. But he was soon amazed by their labors, so he just stuck to his normal duties.
And during that process of recovering from the damager of the recent war and preparing for the future, news reached me from the capital.
((Your Highness! Something happened!))
Montpellier’s voice sounded very nervous as it came from the crystal ball.
“Ah, you again. What is it?” I asked with some anxiety, though I was by now used to Montpellier’s spells of nervousness. I figured that, as before, it wouldn’t be that big a deal.
It was.
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