| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 2635 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 1636 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
“Everyone, do not retreat. You must all stop the enemies here!”
Esther’s shout echoed across the battlefield. Thankfully it seemed like we weren’t too late as the battlefield was still filled with war cries and dying screams.
They were so engrossed in their battle that even though an overwhelming amount of additional soldiers had arrived at the scene, none of the soldiers on either side turned towards us or even so much as noticed that we had arrived.
“All troops, charge in!”
This was our chance. I gave the soldiers the order and in the next moment, a roar full of fighting spirit came from the soldiers as they charged in.
They all headed towards the back of the enemy formation that was in a dogfight with our allies.
“Huh? What the-!”
Coming to the sudden realization, the enemies became confused and flustered from seeing our soldiers charge in.
“Agh!”
“Kghh!”
“Enemies are ambushing us from behi– Argh!”
But it seemed like we were quick enough to prevent them from noticing us. We started to cut down all the enemy soldiers that got in our way. As the enemy formation was attacked from both ends, their tight formation began to fall apart.
“Damn it!”
Seeing the situation, the commander looked surprised and confused. Seeing himself in the middle of a surprise pincer attack the commander didn’t know what to do and could only panic. With his reaction, I was sure that he didn’t expect reinforcements to arrive so soon.
However, I wasn’t just going to stand by and watch. Dashing right at him, I lifted up my Excalibur and cut down cleanly in a diagonal fashion.
“Ah…”
Watching me with disbelief-filled eyes, I decided to satiate his curiosity.
“My name is Artoria.”
“Thank you…”
And with that, he slumped to the ground. I wonder what he was thankful for? Perhaps that he didn’t die at the hands of some random soldier that no one knew. I didn’t think too much about it.
[Inferno]Katalina had snuck up behind me before I knew it, blasting her fire magic towards an enemy soldier that tried to strike at me.
As a line of burning fire stretched out from her direction, several screamed in horror as they dodged and fell from her attack, the battle line they worked so hard to establish crumbled. The allied forces used this as an opportunity to finish them, and the enemy forces fell as they got cut down like ripe wheat.
“Looks like their top brass isn’t here,” Katalina mentioned to me as she surveyed the surroundings.
“Yeah.” I was also searching for them the whole time but didn’t find any.
“It seems they ran away, perhaps they found out that we were heading towards here.”
“You’re saying they just abandoned their soldiers and ran away?”
“They’re the type of person that would think that they haven’t lost the war as long as they still have their top soldiers on standby, so just some lower-class guild members dying isn’t much of a problem to them.”
“But I’m pretty sure that for a full-scale war like this, losing even a single soldier is pretty devastating…”
“Which was why they made use of lower-class guild members. Look closer at them.”
Realizing only after Katalina informed me, I looked closely at the enemy guild members’ appearance. Staring at where they showed their guild symbol, I realized that they weren’t all wearing the same symbol but rather had a variety of symbols spread out among them. It meant that the soldiers weren’t all from a single guild.
Meaning that they were just random soldiers that they gathered from other guilds they could acquire.
“Then how could these soldiers be strong enough to go against the Sapphire guil- Ah!”
I had overlooked that it had been 3 days. When they still had not completely recovered the accumulated fatigue, their movements would obviously be sluggish and various stats would be reduced by a certain amount in those conditions.
So it would explain why low-quality troops could fight on equal grounds with her forces.
“From what I can tell, I think that the enemy forces used their main troops for the first attack, and made use of their subservient guilds as a disposable army so that she wasn’t able to completely recover from her fatigue. Anyway, since our alliance has a lower number of subservient guilds compared to the enemy guilds, the number of people we can use that way are limited.”
“You’re probably right.”
“But don’t think about making these troops surrender to us and taking them into our guild.”
Katalina wanted to prevent me from doing such a thing.
“Why? I think that it’s always best to reduce the number of unnecessary battles.”
“They have been battling each other for 3 days straight, so they are likely to be extremely hostile to each other, and not only that, the average guild members are people who are desperate for kill points compared to us who don’t need it that much. If you were to block our allied troops from being able to gain kill points here, how are you going to compensate them? And if we were to take these soldiers in, people may start to think that even if they are our enemy, they simply need to surrender to us since we would guarantee their rights and let them go alive. If they were to think that way, would there be any subservient guilds left that would genuinely help us out when we’re in a dire situation? On top of that, think of the people in the original guild that have to be working in the same place as those people who they had just fought against…”
“So you’re saying we’ll end up being suckers that take in any enemy, right?”
“That’s right. The original members of the guilds would always feel annoyed at any sudden influx of members into the guild. On top of that, there could be some bad people that are greedy…”
Katalina had a point there. Whatever their position in the army was, they had already experienced the battles of this war. They knew that there were risks in participating in the war and they did it willingly.
The enemy forces that joined our allied guilds were the same as well, they were looking forward to the profit they would be able to gain from winning the war, so they were willing to endure defeat and join our forces to gain that profit in the future. There’s a definite difference between people who joined the guild through their own will than those that joined with ulterior motives, so if we were to treat them the same, the foundation of the guilds may start to fall apart.
“I guess there’s no helping it then.”
In the end, there was only one choice I could make. Even if numerous small to medium-sized enemy guilds were destroyed by this decision, and even if they were to experience grief and loss from dying in battle, I shouldn’t feel guilty since this was war and they knew the risks as well.
“Good thinking.”
It seemed Katalina was very thankful for the fact that I changed my mind and spoke to me with a very apologetic expression.
“It’s fine. It’s not like I lead all of the guilds by myself anyways, I can be wrong sometimes.”
“Thank you for thinking that way.”
She sounded like what I said took a huge burden off her shoulders. She must have been listening to all the complaints from commanders that I am not familiar with and taking in stress while acting as a mediator for me, which meant that she was so stressed over time, she had to ask me directly like this.
“Oh yeah, can you try your best not to kill the healers?”
“Hmm… I guess you have a reason for that, right?”
“Yeah.”
Katalina seemed to guess that I must have some reason, so she decided not to ask about it.
At the same time, the battle was progressing in a one-sided massacre.
[Amazing timing for your arrival!][Yeah, I’m glad I wasn’t late. You didn’t sleep properly for the last 3 days, right?]
[Ah! How did you know… I was so wracked with the responsibility to protect Liverpool against all odds that I couldn’t have a proper sleep schedule. I’m sorry.]
[No, it’s fine. You protected the city, after all, I’m thankful to you for enduring so long.]
My words weren’t just empty compliments. It was obvious that the side that is on defense is the one that builds up much more fatigue over time. The side that does the attacking can always choose when to attack, meaning that they can conserve their fatigue as much as they want while those defending have to be ready at any moment for the attack and can’t rest properly.
The stress and fatigue built up from such a thing weren’t trivial. And it was even over a whole field rather than just a castle…
The fact that Esther stressed herself out so much just so that she could make sure that Liverpool was safe and sound made me think that she was being a bit of a fool, but I was still proud of her.
[Hehe, I feel more energized now thanks to your words.][All right, then I’ll see you a bit later.]
[Okay!]
Hearing Esther’s bright answer, I smiled in reply as I dodged a sword being swung at my face, plunging my Excalibur right into the enemy’s body afterward.
“Guess there’s no helping it.”
Though I wasn’t really feeling up to it, I started to move my body in order to cut down the enemy forces that I could still see.
