Chapter 3 – Story 76: The Humiliation of Sunomuta 16 – Fateful Luck
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T/N:
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“We… Our 『Black Wall』 has been encircled, you say!?”
Adomius, an officer of the Black Wall, uttered in disbelief as he looked at the scenery playing out in front of his eyes. At first, he had optimistically watched the battle like Alexius, who was reclining in his elevated spectator seat.
But that was only understandable with the battlefield being an open field, which clearly was beneficial for the bigger army. On top of that, the one having taken the field on such an advantageous terrain was Holmea’s strongest army corps, the Black Wall.
It was unthinkable for Holmea to lose under these circumstances. And yet, that conviction of certain victory started to develop its first cracks when the zoan changed their direction, although they were supposed to flee after having split in two groups and abandoned the enemy headquarters.
For a time it looked like the zoan were trying to pedal back out of guilty conscience over having abandoned their headquarters, but after routing the 3rd and 4th Division in no time, they went on to attack the flanks of the 2nd Division.
And while Adomius was still watching all of this unfold in shock, the 2nd Division got fully encircled by the enemy. However, Alexius only looked at the battlefield with a dumbfounded, blank expression while still seated in his spectator’s seat.
Still, Adomius believed that to be understandable. Holmea’s strongest army corps was about to be annihilated after getting surrounded. It was so silly an idea that even he himself found it hard to believe what he was seeing.
“Your Highness!”
Alexius finally came to his senses upon Adomius loudly calling out to him.
“W-What’s wrong?”
“It is pretty obvious what is wrong! Our allies are in danger! We must reinforce them at once!”
A stir occurred among those in the vicinity upon hearing Adomius’s appeal. Feeling fear in their hushed voices, Adomius glared at them with a furious grimace, causing all of them to avert their eyes with cramped faces.
“Y-You’re right. ――Everyone, advance!”
The 5th Division finally started to move in response to Alexius’s order. But――
Adomius felt like screaming at them for being lame ducks. The 5th Division was a gathering of Alexius’s underlings to begin with. Their skill was far below that of the Black Wall. In addition to that, they were already scared as the Black Wall had found itself in a lethal predicament, so their legs felt abnormally heavy. Usually they’d gain their military achievements by pursuing enemies who were running away from the Black Wall, but now that push had come to shove, they acted like a bunch of spineless cowards. Adomius was so angry that he felt how his guts twisted from his seething rage.
He wanted to ditch those dullards and head over to help his comrades with just the soldiers directly assigned to him, but that was no option either. Soldiers exhibited their full might by gathering in numbers and lining up their spears. Even if his soldiers might be known as peerless elites, he had a unit of slightly more than a hundred soldiers at hand right now. Heading out to reinforce their suffering comrades with these numbers would only lead to them getting annihilated first.
Besides, if it was a group of people who only cared about their own hide and didn’t feel a shred of desire to try their allies, those folks wouldn’t hesitate to see this as a stroke of luck and retreat the second Adomius’s group, the ones insisting on reinforcing their allies, had left.
Adomius had no choice but to bear the pain of himself being torn up by his heart wanting to immediately rush over to help his war buddies while his body was stuck in a reality he couldn’t influence in any meaningful way.
In this state of inner conflict, Adomius’s eyes caught how a trebuchet collapsed in the enemy camp while burning brightly. He didn’t know whether it was just an auditory hallucination accompanying that or a gust of wind passing by coincidentally, but he felt like he heard Hiakis’s voice, which shouldn’t have been possible.
“Hiakis…”
Adomius had a hunch that Hiakis had died.
“You idiot! Who’s going to carry His Excellency’s helm for when His Excellency manages to come back, if you croak on us!?”
Rage and sadness unconsciously gushed out his mouth. Hearing that, Alexius asked from atop his seat, “Did you just say that Hiakis died?”
“If you look at the chaotic state of his soldiers, I can only suspect that Vice-Corps Commander Hiakis isn’t able to give commands for some reason!”
And when it came to being unable to lead the soldiers in this sort of situation, having been killed in action would be about the only logical explanation.
“W-What should we do now, Adomius!?”
Even Alexius wouldn’t usually ask something so stupid. That alone showed the depth of the shock he suffered from hearing about Hiakis’s death.
However, right now Adomius had no leeway to be considerate of that.
“Don’t ask me something so obvious! Right now several thousand soldiers are desperately fighting over there! Your Highness, do you plan to abandon all those brave men!?”
“I would never do something like that! ――Everyone, hurry!”
Adomius barely managed to roar at Alexius, who had given that order, to get off his spectator seat, if he really meant it. The 5th Division’s pace wasn’t just slow because of the soldiers being frightened, but they also had to match the speed of Alexius’s chariot which had a frighteningly bad stability.
However, it’d be impossible for Alexius to get off his seat right away anyway. They’d need to stop the chariot for some time to let Alexius climb off his unstable, high tower seat. And in such a case, the 5th Division would naturally come to a grinding halt as well. Despite having started to move at long last. Moreover, it’d also take time to get the division moving again.
It was hard to tell whether it’d be faster to get Alexius out of his chair or move on while letting him sit in there. If the other party wasn’t a prince, Adomius would have yanked him off that seat while the chariot was still moving without allowing any objections, but unfortunately he had to grit his teeth and resist the temptation of doing something that would be definitely described as lese majeste.
But despite all the adversities, the 5th Division eventually reached the battlefield with its fierce battles.
“Ready your spears! We will pierce through the enemy encirclement and rescue our friendly units!” Adomius handed down his order.
The soldiers pointed their spears at the zoan encirclement and started to advance.
◆◇◆◇◆
Garam had been closely watching that development. Up until now he had stood at the forefront of the encirclement, cutting down one enemy soldier after the other, but after being notified about the 5th Division’s approach through a harpyian, he temporarily fell back to the rear.
While watching the 5th Division heading their way, Garam yelled, “Narrow down the encirclement!”
Hearing his order, Shishul beat her drum. In response, the zoan warriors intensified their onslaught against the surrounded 2nd Division. The Holmean soldiers backed, trying to get as much distance between them and the attacking zoan, but being surrounded in all directions, the 2nd Division had no way out. Falling back on one side meant pushing the other side. It was almost like a game of push-and-shove.
As he listened to the tumult amidst the 2nd Division, Garam calmly gauged the distance to the 5th Division. And just as the 5th Division reached the proper distance, Garam yelled, “Now!”
At once Shishul started to furiously beat her drum. And immediately following, all zoan simultaneously began to move.
“What!?”
Adomius was flabbergasted.
Before they could charge into the enemy, the zoan parted to the sides in front of them as if a gate opened in the wall that had surrounded the 2ndDivision thus far. The zoan maneuver completely startled Adomius who was a veteran officer, but at that moment something unforeseen happened.
Shishul had signaled her brethren, but when she tried to retreat together with Garam, she tripped, probably out of exhaustion, and fell over.
Beginning with their stone-throwing attack, the zoan had widely circumvented the battlefield, just to assault the 3rd and 4th Divisions. Moreover, they had attacked and encircled the 2nd Division, continuing to struggle all the time up until now. Among them, Garam had been the most extreme. He always stood at the head of his brethren, ran across the battlefield, and fought.
Him being able to pull that off was his tough body which justified him being called the plains’ strongest warrior.
But, Shishul was different. She was a girl with very ordinary strength as a female zoan warrior. She managed to somehow hang on to Garam out of respect and love, but after having endured all this time, her body finally started to protest violently.
Yet, this was the worst possible timing for that to happen.
Having fallen over, Shishul ended up being left behind by herself as her brethren had drawn back to the sides like a tide. And the soldiers of the 2nd Division, finally free of the encirclement, flooded towards her.
Shishul resolved herself to die here as the soldiers surged towards her with faces colored by emotions that could be joy or grief and bloodshot eyes.
“You idiot!”
A burly arm wrapped itself around her slender waist alongside that angry complaint. And in the next instant, the surrounding scenery vanished in the back. Once her mind caught up, the Holmean soldiers, who had been about to trample her down, were in the distant rear and she was among her retreating brethren.
“…! 《Ferocious Fang》!”
Shishul stared at Garam’s face in close proximity while hysterically raising her voice. At that point, she realized that she was being held by Garam’s right arm, and started to flap her arms and legs.
“…If you’ve got so much strength left, run on your own four feet.”
Garam casually dropped Shishul. She landed on all four in panic and tried to thank him for having saved her, but when she looked up, she noticed Garam’s arm being wet with some odd, black liquid.
“Don’t tell me, 《Ferocious Fang》, you injured your arm…!?”
In response Garam glanced at his own arm as if having finally realized that he actually got wounded.
“It’s a scratch. No problem.”
“But, that amount of blood…!”
“It’s a scratch.”
Garam shut up Shishul by glaring at her. And then Garam loudly addressed the zoan warriors.
“Brethren, muster your last ounce of strength!”
◆◇◆◇◆
Adomius was bewildered by the zoan readily giving up on their encirclement. Moreover, it happened so smoothly that he couldn’t help but think they had decided upon this in advance. This meant they didn’t do it because they were scared of the approaching 5th Division, but because they had some sort of objective with this.
He guessed all that, and Adomius immediately understood their aim, too.
Because the encirclement vanished all of a sudden, the soldiers of the 2nd Division poured out like a flood. Their momentum was no different from a huge wave. The remaining fragments of fear triggered by the encirclement and the delight over having been freed blended in complicated ways on the soldiers’ faces. They pushed their way through the allies in front of them, kicked them down, and trampled over them; all so that they could escape the place where they had been surrounded.
At this point, it was already a riot. And the ones standing in the way of that rioting mob were the 5th Division.
“…No way!”
Having been released from their deadly predicament, the soldiers should desire to escape as quickly as possible to a safe place. Assuming they spotted a friendly army in front of them, it was pretty clear what they’d do ―― they’d take refuge in that friendly army.
But, this was nothing the 5th Division could handle. Far from allies who were moving orderly under a strict command, the ones heading their way were a mob. If the 5th Division tried to take in such a disorderly group, it’d completely throw their ranks in disarray. On top of that, it was quite possible for the fear and confusion of the fleeing soldiers to infect the soldiers of the 5th Division.
Having said that, they couldn’t simply tell those soldiers to stay away either. In the first place, the 5th Division had come here to rescue their friendlies, so it’d be ridiculous to now refuse them.
The remnants of the 2nd Division surged into the 5th Division without Alexius or Adomius being able to take any measures. And this caused appalling friendly fire to occur.
The soldiers of the 5th Division had readied their spears, pushing them out in front, to break through the zoan encirclement. The soldiers, who had now escaped that encirclement, naturally tried to dodge those spears. But, the soldiers of the 5th Division weren’t scarecrows either. They moved their spears so as to not hurt their approaching allies.
However, that resulted in them stabbing the allies, who tried to dodge the spears, instead. Stabbing to death the soldiers whom they were supposed to rescue caused unrest among the soldiers. Yet, their allies kept successively flowing in without paying any heed to that.
The 5th Division plummeted into a terrible chaos because of the allies they were supposed to rescue.
While being jostled around by those very fleeing soldiers, Adomius yelled in anger, “You blasted brutes! Are you planning to shred us apart by using our own allies!?”
Alexius, on the other hand, didn’t even have the leeway to vent his anger in such a way. His chariot was being pushed around by the confused soldiers, causing the high spectator seat with Alexius on it to shake violently like a small boat in stormy sea. Alexius had no choice but to frantically cling to his seat so that he wouldn’t be thrown off.
And as he was doing so, he spotted the zoan sprinting on the other side of the 5th Division while raising a cloud of dust.
“Don’t tell me…those fucking beasts…! They’re trying to encircle even someone as noble as me!?”
Just as Alexius suspected, the zoan tried to surround the disorderly 5th Division after temporarily undoing their siege and spreading their ring with Garam and Zurgu running at the heads of the respective wings.
Alexius tried to hurl out commands to avoid his troops being surrounded as well, but at that moment a strong gust of wind blew across the battlefield. Struck by the wind, the big flag of Holmea, depicting the profile of a golden lion on vermilion ground, on Alexius’s chariot fluttered.
In the next instant, that big flag was pierced by a single arrow. And then a sharp pain ran through Alexius’s cheek. Once he reflexively placed his hand on his cheek, his fingertips touched gooey blood. At this point Alexius noticed the arrow stuck in the backrest of his seat, its shaft still trembling. It made him realized that he had been sniped.
“Hiiii!”
For the first time in his life, Alexius was scared by the reality of his life being in acute danger. Appearance and reputation no longer played a role. While whining pathetically, Alexius descended his spectator’s seat, or rather tumbled down.
◆◇◆◇◆
The one having shot that arrow was Eladia. Yet, she couldn’t help but furrow her graceful eyebrows ever so slightly.
“It missed…?”
When she released the arrow, she felt that it’d definitely hit its target. And yet the arrow veered off, allowing Alexius to live on.
Alexius rolled off his high chair, but her arrow would still reach him. Eladia pulled herself together, nocked a new arrow on her bow, and aimed at Alexius once again. But, right before releasing that arrow, she changed her aim.
As Eladia’s bowstring crooned, the arrow struck a soldier near Alexius, just as targeted, stealing his life. It wasn’t as though her skill had declined out of fatigue. Eladia used that soldier to make sure of that, but now that the arrow she believed to hit the prince had missed, she didn’t feel like her arrow would hit Alexius anymore.
Suddenly she remembered something. It was an event from her youth when she was out hunting together with her father. Just like now, Eladia was grumpy about her arrow having missed her targeted rabbit even though she was convinced it’d definitely.
Her father had told her the following: “That probably means that the rabbit’s time to die hasn’t come yet. All creatures are born to accomplish something in this world, and as long as they haven’t accomplished whatever is their calling, their life will be protected by fate. That’s their fateful luck.”
“That man’s fateful luck hasn’t run out yet…?”
However, the 5th Division led by Alexius was already about to be encircled by the zoan. She couldn’t believe that he’d be able to escape under these circumstances.
Is it his fateful luck to become Lord Soma’s prisoner?
Eladia asked herself. Not only her, but everyone else believed that the whole punitive force alongside Alexius would perish within the encirclement.
At such a moment, a unit of a little more than a hundred men arrived on the battlefield with its devastating tendency for Holmea’s army.
“This is…just what is going on…!?”
It was Baron Kantbias and his soldiers, who had been ordered to stay back in the rear.
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