Chapter 3 – Story 121: Net
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“Everyone, keep in mind! Now is the time to show the fruits of all our training!”
The one giving those instructions atop the wall was Bird General Pipi Totto Gigi. And the ones lining up in front of her while attentively listening to her orders with their arms hidden underneath the colorful wings were her brethren.
“From now on, we must become Soma-sama’s eyes, ears, and voice! ――Spread the 『Net』!”
Finishing with those words, Pipi whirled around, scaled the parapet, and leaped into the air. Spreading her wings while falling, she began to widely flap her arms. The instant her wings were caught by the wind, Pipi’s body was freed from its gravitational shackles and quickly soared into the sky. Following her example, one harpyian after another flew off, each with a long belt of thin fabric attached to their waist. All those belts had different colors. Looking up from below, it seemed as if the harpyian girls all had colored smoke trailing behind them, like the ones you could see during acrobatic jet flights.
Watching this, the head warrior of the Eye Clan ordered, “All hands, don’t lose sight of the harpyian you’re supposed to follow! ――Depart!”
Right after hurling that command at his subordinate warriors, the head warrior went down on all fours and started to run. Following him were zoan warriors, also on all four. Moreover, you could see several elven cavalry archers on horse among the zoan warriors chasing after their respective harpyian.
All of them belonged to the force called 『Net』.
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“The one enabling the strategies of Divine Son of Destruction Soma Kisaki was Bird General Pipi Totto Gigi.”
Those were the words by the lead researcher on the Divine Son of Destruction, Professor Martin S. Ackerson.
“There’s only a little we know about Bird General Pipi. The documents describing her are few, and even those documents only mention that she was the head of the harpyian serving Soma Kisaki, mainly in charge of communication and reconnaissance as a bird general.
If one considers how powerless harpyians are, it’s hard to imagine her achieving a big accomplishment like reaping the head of a renowned enemy general. As such, it’s likely reasonable for there to exist very few records of her.
Moreover, even at their best, the harpyians directly under her numbered fewer than a hundred in total. Even though they were regarded as a force belonging to the Divine Son of Destruction’s side, they definitely fell behind the other races in prominence. Yet Pipi was appointed to the same rank in Soma Kisaki’s army as Beast General Zurgu, who was widely known as a brave commander, or Archer General Eladia, who was infamously called Enchantress.
People in later years explained this away as Pipi simply being allowed to serve at Soma Kisaki’s side as a symbol of his ideal of treating all races equally, or, in other words, they dubbed it nothing more than special treatment.
And even though she was a veteran general who had been with Soma Kisaki since before the time he created his flag, this line of argumentation was the main reason for Pipi’s name not coming up in what was commonly referred to as the 『Seven Arms Generals』.
But that was a grave mistake,” continued Professor Ackerson. “According to 『Shyemul’s Notes』, which were discovered in recent years, the true value of 『Net』, the force which was considered to have been led by Bird General Pipi under orders by Soma, became clear.
Going by that document, 『Net』 was a force made up of several platoons with each platoon consisting of one or two harpyians, zoan drummers, warrior guards, and, in addition, elven archers. This composition made the intention behind those platoons very obvious.
While the harpyians would scout the terrain from the sky, their information would be passed on through zoan drums. Moreover, going by the fact that elves, who possessed excellent hearing――and not just their archers, but valuable cavalry archers――had been added to those platoons, several of these units were very likely spread out across the whole battlefield, functioning like an information network by staying in contact with each other.
If this hypothesis proves to be correct, they must have undoubtedly been a tremendous joker for the Divine Son of Destruction. Back then, people passed orders or information by running or riding horses. Naturally, this also became a major hurdle for spotting enemy movements and battle formations in time. Yet, Divine Son of Destruction Soma Kisaki alone grasped the entirety of the battlefield thanks to 『Net』.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the surround-and-annihilate strategy, which nowadays is known as 『Divine Son of Destruction’s Embrace』, and the tactic of pincer attacking through detached advance units, which has been highly praised as a divine feat, were only possible thanks to Bird General Pipi and 『Net』, which was led by her.”
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Zoan drums began to resound across Holmea’s east. As soon as the harpyians discovered the enemy through their airborne reconnaissance, they informed the zoan following them in detail, who then, in turn, passed on the information through a drum relay. Thanks to this, it became possible to transmit information much faster and farther than would have been possible relying solely on the harpyians.
But this sort of method came with its own share of problems, too.
Among the zoan of the plains, it was originally a matter of courtesy to refrain from beating one’s drum while they could hear the drum of another person. But they couldn’t afford to pay attention to something like that in a pressing situation like a pursuit battle. Hence, zoan drums would be heard everywhere, overlapping with one another.
In addition, they couldn’t describe their own location or the enemy’s. When it came to the Solbiant Plains, which the zoan knew well, they possessed drum signals that allowed them to inform the receiver about the sender’s approximate location. But drum signals to mark the geography of Holmea, which used to be enemy territory until a few days ago, didn’t exist yet. Of course, if a detailed map based on precise surveying had existed, it’d have been possible to identify a place by passing along the map’s coordinates via drum signals, but something like that naturally wasn’t around.
Because of that, they had no choice but to guess the distance and direction from the drum sounds reaching them from various places at the same time. But, this was a struggle for the zoan too.
The ones assisting them in that part were the elves. The zoan were blessed with five senses that were equal to those of animals, but their sense of hearing clearly fell behind the elves. Especially when it came to the ability to recognize and single out one sound amidst many sound sources, the zoan couldn’t even hold a candle to the elves.
Exactly because the elves had to fully rely on their ears to identify the prey they were hunting or dangerous animals they had to avoid, amidst a cacophony of miscellaneous sounds caused by various birds, wild animals, and bugs inside the dense forest with its bad visibility, you could say that this was a racial ability that the elves had acquired to survive.
The elven cavalry archers, who had been incorporated into 『Net』, strained their ears, boosted by ear amplifiers, and accurately measured the distance and direction of the drums. The elven women, at times tilting their faces left and right, followed the same principle red foxes use to guess the precise location of small animals hiding under the snow: the difference in hearing the sounds those small animals make in the fox’s left and right ears.
Because of the zoan deciphering the drum signals and the elves grasping the direction and distance of those sounds, information about Romania’s defeated army, which had scattered across Holmea’s east, continuously arrived at Zurgu’s place. With a hand on the map of Holmea, which roughly depicted the topography of the land, Zurgu barked out one order after the other to his warriors as soon as he judged that he had fully grasped the enemy they were supposed to defeat.
“Jazam, I’m gonna leave the enemies in this place to you. Take a hundred warriors with you and crush them. Dadanta, this place and this place. Both seem to have around ten enemies. If it’s you, taking twenty warriors should be more than plenty. This place here――”
The warriors of the Claw Clan had deep trust in Zurgu, who had continued to exhibit his abilities up until now, even if those were somewhat unconventional. They all headed out to clean up the enemies while leading the number of soldiers they had been told. One warrior after the other departed to mop up enemy units. In the end, only the head warrior of the Claw Clan and around a hundred especially excellent warriors of the clan remained,
“Clan head, what are we supposed to do?” the head warrior asked while implying that he had absolutely no interest in staying back here.
Zurgu bared his fangs as if to say it was an unnecessary worry, then smiled. “We chase this one here.”
Zurgu pointed at a group on the map that was escaping at full speed northwards, on a course that kept them somewhat separated from the main force of Romania’s army.
“Their movements are awfully decisive. Moreover, they seem to be heading straight ahead towards some sort of destination by themselves without trying to join up with their main force. No matter how you look at it, these guys are way too fishy. I’ll go beat them up personally. ――Let’s go. Follow me, men!”
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The ones Zurgu set his sight on were Vulitas, the man who had announced himself to be king of Holmea, and his followers around General Kuffner, who had betrayed Holmea and joined Vulitas’s rebellion. As soon as they saw Romania’s army fleeing before Holmenia, they broke away from it, believing that staying any longer would be dangerous, and headed for Laphrae, their base, at full speed.
“Kuffner! Delyra isn’t here! Where is she!?” shouted Vulitas atop a chariot which was so adorned with extravagant decorations and gems that one could rightfully doubt its suitability for the battlefield.
While sunk into a heap of pillows to soften the vibrations and jolts from the driving vehicle, Vulitas had been repeatedly bugging Kuffner, who was riding next to the chariot, about this. But Kuffner had ignored him all this time.
Right now, we have to return to Laphrae as soon as possible and reinforce our defenses. If we don’t resume our cooperation with Romania once more afterward, we will be stranded in this land, which has become enemy territory for us. Given all those problems in front of us, the whereabouts of the likes of a lowly female dancer don’t matter at all, no matter how much affection she gave him.
“I cannot be finished here. Otherwise, I won’t know why I got my hands dirty…!”
I cannot afford to end up as a traitor who sold out his own homeland to an enemy nation.
Suddenly, a subordinate called out to Kuffner as he was baring his teeth in anger.
“General Kuffner! A group has appeared, following us!”
In response, Kuffner looked back. He quickly spotted the group in question. Their speed was quite something. But, as far as he could tell, they weren’t riding horses. The only ones that came to mind in this case were the zoan.
“Shit! They caught up to us, eh!?” Kuffner spat out.
Although they had horses and chariots, the majority of the soldiers with them were infantrymen. There were limits to their running speed, and they wouldn’t be able to run away from the zoan anyway, if they seriously chased after them, seeing how their entire race could run as fast as horses.
But, it was still unexpected that the zoan had caught up to them so quickly, given that they were heading for Laphrae while deliberately using side roads.
“All men, stop! We will meet the enemy pursuit!” Kuffner ordered the soldiers after having judged that running away would be impossible.
But the soldiers, whom he had made run all this time, couldn’t stop so suddenly. In addition, their morale was already compromised since they were on the run. Even so, the commanding officers frantically shouted the orders. Yet, the soldiers didn’t move as desired. And while they couldn’t even line up their spears properly, the warriors of the Claw Clan, with Zurgu in the lead, plunged into them.
“Rout them!” roared Zurgu as he lopped off the head of a man who appeared to be a commanding officer, going by his helmet.
The warriors of the Claw Clan roared like beasts and cut into the enemy so as to follow their clan chief. While the battlefield immediately devolved into a melee, Zurgu searched for the enemy commander he was supposed to take down. Thereupon, he quickly found Kuffner, who was desperately encouraging his confused soldier from atop his horse.
While licking his lips in expectation of reaping the enemy general’s head, Zurgu lowered his blood-smeared machete and walked up towards Kuffner. The guards around Kuffner stood in front of Zurgu, trying to stop him from reaching their general. But none of them came even close to being a hindrance for the red-haired zoan. Zurgu chopped them all up within less than a count of five.
Witnessing the military prowess of Zurgu, Kuffner hesitated whether he should abandon Vulitas and flee on his horse by himself.
Zurga lightly tilted his head in front of him, “Hmm? I feel like I’ve seen and smelled you somewhere before.”
Zurgu was still struggling with human faces, but he somehow learned to differentiate them by scent and appearance. Zurgu rummaged through his memory, sniffing, and soon remembered.
“Ah, you’re the guy who led the pursuers when we freed the dwarves from the mine.”
Hearing those words, Kuffner also realized that Zurgu was the zoan who had slashed at him back then.
Zurgu grinned so broadly that even a human like Kuffner could tell.
“It seems like your buddy, who saved you at that time, is now missing. Do you think you can win against me by yourself?”
For Zurgu, this was no more than a light provocation to keep his opponent here. But, for Kuffner, who had killed that very buddy with his own hands, this was far too ironic.
“You damned beast!” Kuffner flew into a rage after having been hit where it hurt.
As soon as he dismounted, he unsheathed his sword and attacked Zurgu. Kuffner was at the height of his youth. You couldn’t call him weak by any means. But his opponent this time was just too much of a bad match for him. If Garam was the strongest hero of the plains, Zurgu could be called the scariest warrior of the plains. If one gets angry at such a man and recklessly comes slashing at him without a plan or strategy, it won’t be much of a match.
After three exchanges, as if to honor courtesy, Zurgu smashed Kuffner’s head alongside the helmet with his machete. Kuffner’s trembling lips moved faintly for a short moment afterward, but then he quickly fell to the ground with a thud. Zurgu looked down at the corpse for a short moment. He felt like Kuffner had called out someone’s name and apologized to them right before his death. But Zurgu quickly lost all interest in this and turned his back on the dead enemy.
“I took down the enemy commander! Hurry up and quickly clean up the remaining enemies, guys!”
Zurgu thrust his bloody machete into the air as he rallied his warriors. As their clan chief had killed the enemy general, the warriors of the Claw Clan had no choice but to rally their own spirits. Before long, all of Kuffner’s soldiers had turned into unmoving corpses.
Ordering his warriors to deal with the aftermath, now that the battle was over, Zurgu scanned the map, searching for the enemy they should attack next. Suddenly, his head warrior called out to him.
“《Mad Claw》. We took a prisoner.”
Being interrupted in the task of determining their next prey, Zurgu sullenly answered, “I was sure I told you to kill them all without taking any prisoners.”
From now on, they would be running all over the place to mop up the fleeing soldiers of Romania’s army. They didn’t have the time or the spare energy to take care of prisoners, so he had ordered his warriors to slaughter the enemy.
However, the head warrior smiled bitterly.
“I’m well aware of that, Mad Claw. However, since we found someone interesting, I had a warrior take him in on my own decision.”
His head warrior had been a good right-hand man who interacted politely with Zurgu, despite being the older of the two. Seeing how far such a man was going, Zurgu also began to feel interested in the prisoner. At once, he ordered the prisoner brought before him.
Soon, a man was dragged over, both his arms held by burly zoan warriors. As soon as he saw him, Zurgau broke out in laughter and praised his head warrior for his discernment. Afterward, Zurgu said the following while donning a nasty smile: “Ooohh! Isn’t that the fat rabbit? What a coincidence to run into you in a place like this.”
While being partially suspended in the air by the zoan, Vulitas’s body trembled as the flesh under his chin shook flabbily.
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Just like this, many of the fleeing Romanian soldiers, who had scattered all over Holmea, were swiftly cleaned up by Zurgu. But, it wasn’t as though everything proceeded smoothly either.
Right around this time, a formidable enemy stood in the way of Garam, who had been coming after Romania’s main force.
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