Chapter 119 - Converge

Proofreader: Umbra-san

When Curiu received the battlefield report, it was midnight.

“Holy foock!!”

Like a wounded beast, his face turned red and he roared in anger, poundinging the table.After realizing his subordinate was shivering and the table was cracked, he quickly calmed down.

From the report, Rozyth’s army had 9,000 infantry and 4,500 cavalry, 4,000 of which were from Calro. In total the opposition had 17,500 troops including 13,000 infantry and 4,500 cavalry. But we had 28,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. We had the advantage in numbers…

Cuiru turned his sight toward the enemies’ city. If everything goes to plan he will capture it in three days. However, three days was also enough for his rivals. During the battle, his army will be under the attack of both the Rosyth and the defenders.

Curiu had two choices:

The first was to temporarily retreat and give his army a rest. This would mean sitting by and watching his two enemies converge, though. The other option was leaving part of the army for siege, Curiu with his main force came to fight with the army of King Rosyth in a battle.

But it may have to disperse his army. 10,000 soldiers are still in the city, and Curiu needs at least that many to hold it. However, it would level the difference for both.

Curiu had a dilemma.

“Enemy is close behind us, we’d better temporarily retreat.”

It wasn’t the best choice, but the most suitable. Once decided, he acted immediately.

“Prepare to retreat!”

“Oh, I am so sleepy…”

Rubbing her tired eyes, Alice crept on the roof. Every night, she delved into the capital of Domolgar and acted as an assassin. Because of improving alert, she had targeted those centurions,recently also assassinated the normal soldiers. The enemies couldn’t imagine that an assassin scaled up such a tall rampart without a ladder. They seemed to think there were traitors amongst themselves and turned the alert eyes（for search） inward. As before, it is still very easy for Alice to scaler the ramparts.

Alice can kill three soldiers per day. Because the aim was to target areas that affected morale the most, it was very time consuming. Since assassination involved swooping in and out quickly, she didn’t worry about causing a stir. For another, the aim was to put pressure on the enemy’s spirit, Alice needed to kill again and again.

“Is any of this making sense?”

Looked at the peaceful moon, Alice soliloquized.

The original plan for Alice was to kill the scouts and tried to destroy the ramparts. It was suggested by Alde?Domolgar, but rejected by Curiu.

He said it was too hard to pull off. Rather than taking this bet, a single assassin could be much more effective, Curiu said.

Later, angry with embarrassment, Alde vented by beating t Alice as usual.

“Well, I just do my job, that’s enough.”

Alice aimed at a soldier who was yawning. It seemed a bit distant , however…Alice shortened the distance in a flash.

“Eh…?”

“Sweet dreams.”

Another poor soldier died.

“Alice, you finally came back! Slowly!”

Alde?Domolgar angrily shouted. Recently, he seemed to be feeling terrible. That’s all because his plan was rejected by Curiu. As the king of Domolgar, he should be respected by everyone.

He wondered why his decision couldn’t be carried out.

But today he seemed quite angry.

“What happened?”

“That bastard Curiu, he was going to retreat! If we let him go, our enemies will come to converge!”

“Really?”

Because Alice knew little about warcraft, it was hard for her to understand why Alde was so angry. For rejecting Alde’s stupid plan, Alice believed Curiu’s decision might be a better choice.

“Ahhh! Holy sheet!! The King’s throne is moving away from me!”

He swung at Alice’s face, and Alice answered with nothing but cold eyes. From Alice’s dynamic vision, his action was slow as a snail, but she wasn’t allowed to avoid it.

“Alde-sama. are you ready?”

Alde stopped and opened the door in a hurry.

“Marin-dono, yes, I am ready.”

Alde smiled with a flush and approached Marin.

For those with good observation skills, it was easy to see that Alde has fallen in love with Marin. But Alice didn’t think so. She worked for Alde for a long time and knows him very well. Even though he smiled for Marin, there was no love in his eyes. As for Alice, a hundred-year-old-witch, it was easy to deal with such a girl without any magical protection.

(anyway, it is none of my business)

If Alice received the order to kill Marin, she would kill her in a second.

Alice just executes commands without any self-awareness, whether they be good or bad.

“Calro-sama, urgent news!”

“What happened? Why so serious!”

Calro looked at the soldier who rushed in without knocking. He was discussing strategics with Bartolo, Tonino and Lune.

“The Rozel’s army has disappeared! Here is the letter from King Rosyth!”

The herald handed over Almus’s letter to Calro. Then, Calro tore open the envelope and looked through it.

“What did he write?”

Bartolo came and asked.

Calro smiled and answered:

“They should be here soon!”

“Really?! That means we don’t need to be stuck inside these walls.” Lune leaned back in her chair. It was hard for civilians to be trapped inside a city.

“But…I don’t know if I can keep my head till tomorrow…”

“Finally I’ve arrived.”

Ahead of me was the magnificent capital of Domolgar.

“Dear king Almus, thanks a million for your help, I really appreciate it.” Carlo Domolgar approached me and bowed.

That movement is inequitable in this situation… Small countries had to show their humility to larger ones.

“How kind of you to say so! Carlo-dono, we are supposed to help each other as allies.”

After greeting me and Carlo, Bartolo went forward, knelt and lowered his head.

“My king, this failure was completely due to my inability to measure the enemy’s fighting capacity. I beg you to punish only one person, me.”

I sighed and lowered my voice.

“Bartolo Pompeii. You should be held responsible for this failure!”

“Yes, I know that.”

“You will be my deputy and win the next war for us!”

“?”

Bartolo seemed very surprised.

He thought there would be a heavy punishment awaiting him.

“For a military commander, winning or losing a battle is a common occurrence. If I heavily punished everyone for failures, there would be no soldiers left to fight for me…Of course, those who go against commandsor try to rebel will be punished ruthlessly.

Also, I’m the one who gave him this task. If he was guilty, so was I.

“Did you think I would kill you?”

I smiled and asked.

“Well, I didn’t expect anything that serious. I just thought my territory would be cut down.”

It’s meaningless to cut down my partner’s territory. A commander should have a strong sense of responsibility. I knew Bartolo have it, that’s enough.

“Bartolo. To erase this disgrace, immediately reform our army!”

“Yes, sir!”

Next came General Curiu. Although we have less soldiers, we have more explosive spears.

Whatever you want to use, downy monsters or any other.

I didn’t care, come on!