I Don’t Need a Guillotine for My Revolution

Chapter 133: The Battle of Ciudad (3)

A chaotic frontline.

The enemies moved as if they were will-less puppets.

Even with cavalry charging their flank, they did not flinch. Until the very moment they were pierced by lances, they remained focused on attacking the allies before them.

“Hee-hee-hing!”

“Ugh, uwaaak! You’re insane!”

An enemy, pierced by a lance and sprawled on the ground, swung its arm, striking a warhorse’s leg and unhorsing the cavalryman in a horrifying display.

“Destroy their heads first! Watch your horses’ feet! Trample them completely, crush them!”

“Y-Yes, Your Excellency the Marquis!”

Involuntarily, I ground my teeth, having never imagined a battle like this!

What in the world are we fighting against?Can we even call what we’re fighting right now an army?

Even now, the enemy is flanking us, coming to strike our rear.

Kroxx needs to make a fast decision—

“I trust you, Brother!”

The moment I thought that, I heard Kroxx’s booming roar.

“My confidants and direct subordinates, hold the enemy back! This Kroxx will retreat last with you! The rest of the army, retreat! Support your fallen brothers!”

“As the King commands!”

The instant Kroxx's words fell, the fighting Brothers of Iberica turned and began to flee.

As holes began to appear in the battle line—

The enemies, who had been mechanically repeating only the motion of swinging their arms, began to swing their arms and legs wildly and chase them in an all-out sprint.

A chill ran down my spine at their inorganic, swift movements.

They were running like a human who had devoted their entire life solely to running, trained to the extreme to eliminate any wasted motion for maximum speed!

“Where do you think you’re going!”

“Your opponents are us!”

Fortunately, the enemies running at full speed were attacked by Shandra and Karok and fell immediately.

Now that I see it, these things move as if their actions were fixed.

If the distance to an enemy widens beyond a certain point, they pursue at full speed. If an enemy is in front of them, they simply swing their arms with the exact same motion.

And they did so without weapons, only with strikes.

They subdued, but did not kill.

I glanced back at our allies, struggling to retreat while supporting the fallen scattered across the battlefield.

These damn demons…!

They are fighting with the explicit purpose of capturing people to use as materials for their Industrial Revolution!

I raised my sword and cut off an arm swinging toward my horse, then took the enemy's head.

From the severed neck, which did not shed a single drop of blood, mana leaked out.

An enemy soldier that fought according to the demons' purpose, feeling no emotion or vitality.

They had a human form, but they looked nothing like humans.

Are they some kind of doll?

What is their true nature?

Just as I thought that.

“J-Jack!”

One of my cavalrymen stopped, about to swing his sword, and shouted.

I spurred my horse immediately and cut off the arm swinging at the subordinate.

“Snap out of it! What are you doing on the battlefield!”

I was about to swing my sword again to take its head, but—

“N-No, you can’t!”

I paused, hearing the cavalryman’s desperate plea.

In that instant, the enemy's other arm swung, thudding against my mana barrier then.

Damn it all. What is he—

“I-It’s my little brother! My brother who was taken by King Louis’s conscription officers!”

“What… did you say?”

I turned my head, looking at the enemy still swinging its arm at me.

A form like a desiccated human.

Despite having an arm cut off, it repeatedly swung its other arm with a completely expressionless, wrinkled face.

This is a human?

……From Francia.

The humans whom the corrupt figures of the old regime sold off to continue the civil war… they ended up like this?

“Ugh-”

I felt a wave of nausea rise and covered my mouth with my left hand.

Even so, the enemy relentlessly swung its one remaining arm, just as I finally re-gripped the sword in my right hand—

It stopped its arm upon seeing the cavalryman who'd just restrained me charge forward.

Tears streamed down the charging cavalryman's face as he swung his sword and lopped off the enemy’s head.

Weeping, the man dismounted and picked up the head of what was once his brother from the ground.

“……I’m sorry.”

Spurring my horse again, I lopped off the head of another enemy charging at the cavalryman’s back, and replied.

“No, you did well. Who are you?”

“……Second Lieutenant José Vachet, Your Excellency.”

“Alright, Second Lieutenant Vachet, I permit your retreat. ……You may leave first.”

“……Thank you, His Excellency the Marquis.”

Leaving the Second Lieutenant, who was thanking me as he retreated, I briefly glanced at the headless corpses strewn about.

Then, taking a deep breath, I gathered my mana and shouted to Gaston and the Cuirassiers who were at the forefront, repelling the enemy far away.

“Cuirassiers, fall back, reorganize your ranks! We need to buy time for Kroxx and his confidants to withdraw!”

*

On a hill overlooking the battlefield.

Dressed in a white gown over a purple dress, Paimon held a notebook as he looked down at the battle, his eyes shining as he muttered ceaselessly.

“No issues with continuous combat performance; however, experienced enemies can easily break through the programmed patterns, so the combat protocol needs to be supplemented. A flaw has been identified in the protocol that automatically switches to Sprint Mode based on distance to the designated target. It's necessary to add a pattern to switch the designated target when another enemy is nearby.”

Even as he chattered away, and jotted down notes in his notebook, Paimon’s horn flashed with an ominous purple light.

Realizing that the number of Drones being ‘relayed’ to him had decreased considerably, Paimon frowned slightly, and looked down at the battlefield.

Drones were certainly expendable, and the operational doctrine was based on sacrificing large numbers of them.

The operation was predicated on securing sufficient ‘materials,’ and up until this battle, they had exceeded their goals. However, expending many Drones without replenishing their materials would be quite fatal, especially since the supply of humans and orcs was blocked outside of Iberica.

In this battle as well, the initial combat situation did not deviate much from Paimon's expectations.

Paimon’s assumption that the barbarians of Iberica would try to recover their stunned comrades and retreat had also proven to be spot on.

However, the war situation differed slightly from Paimon’s expectations.

To avoid detection, the Drones intended to strike the rear were sent on a wider flanking maneuver, but the cautious Marquis Lafayette had deployed his Light Cavalry over a wide area and discovered them early.

Moreover, as Kroxx and his elite subordinates covered their retreating allies, the flaw in the Drones—their tendency to enter Sprint Mode as soon as the designated target moved away—became quite fatal.

Even when stronger enemies were fighting nearby, they would ignore the battle and sprint single-mindedly in pursuit, only to be destroyed.

Once the designated targets were far enough away and it was time to surround Kroxx and his confidants, Marquis Lafayette’s cavalry would charge in and ravage the Drones’ defenseless rear and flank.

Drones maintain their combat effectiveness as long as their receiver, their head, or their body is not excessively damaged, and they feel no fear.

Therefore, they countered typical shock cavalry, which aimed to break the enemy's formation and morale with an initial charge.

But when the Lancers charged through to break the lines and the Drones tried to rush the stalled cavalrymen, the Cuirassiers, trained in mana and led by Marquis Lafayette and Gaston, would perform a secondary charge to buy time for the Lancers to withdraw.

When Marquis Lafayette and the Cuirassiers withdrew after covering the Lancers’ retreat, Kroxx and his confidants would charge in to buy time.

Paimon looked down at the scene and murmured softly.

“Indeed, a beautiful fight that puppets could never replicate.”

It wasn't as if they had practiced coordinating before; it was perfect coordination based on abilities honed to the limit in their imperfect bodies—affected by fatigue and fear—and on the trust they had in each other.

Amidst that coordination, the barbarians of Iberica and the Revolutionary Army safely escaped, supporting the comrades the Drones had painstakingly neutralized and subdued.

The extreme efficiency and stability that Paimon pursued.

Although it was the antithesis of a doctrine excluding uncertain variables like emotion and fatigue, he didn’t feel the slightest inclination to belittle that fight.

Watching the scene as if mesmerized, Paimon added a sentence to his notebook and muttered.

“Should Capture Mode's objective prove unattainable, the addition of an Annihilation Mode is necessary.”

Having written that far, Paimon snapped his notebook shut.

Then, the delicate and complex mana circuit engraved on Paimon’s horn hummed and glowed; accordingly, the Drones that had been tenaciously attacking Kroxx and his confidants stopped and began to halt.

Paimon slowly bent his knees, lifting the hem of his dress toward Marquis Lafayette and King Kroxx's direction, though they were too far to see.

Bowing his head slightly in a gesture of courtesy, as if he were a human noble lady, Paimon declared.

“Achieving the objective is a lost cause. Clinging disgracefully to a flawed beta test protocol would be excessively uncool, so I shall withdraw.”

Then, he lightly licked his lips with his tongue and murmured softly.

“Next time, I shall prepare a more improved protocol and greet you with more courtesy and care.”

*

The battle concluded.

The enemies, seemingly attacking forever without tiring or flinching despite the casualties, had stopped; I was able to safely withdraw from the battlefield with Kroxx before the enemy’s flanking unit arrived.

Despite it being a fierce battle, the number of casualties was smaller than expected.

The enemies’ objective was clearly capture, not killing; thanks to that, we were somehow able to gather our wounded soldiers and retreat.

However, that was only in terms of lives.

Our army's morale had plummeted severely.

An enemy against whom conventional wisdom and everything else was useless.

A fear, more akin to biological revulsion for them as living beings than as enemies, permeated all our troops.

To make matters worse, as testimonies poured in from those who had witnessed their own family members or acquaintances among the enemy, their true identity became clear.

The people sold off by corrupt individuals of the old regime in Francia, and those captured by cooperating tribes allied with demons in Porto, had been transformed into those things.

The Industrial Revolution was triggered by Abyss Corporation. The true identity of the technology, which spewed out an incomprehensibly enormous quantity of goods but required humans as materials, was that.

Beings that never tired and endlessly carried out their designated orders.

Because they were once human but were reduced to the demons’ puppets, they could churn out a volume of goods that no living human could ever hope to match, no matter how hard they worked.

Since the supply of humans, the material for this technology, became difficult, they finally brought those things to Iberica, the last remaining location.

Having pushed us back, they are now clearly approaching the capital of the Brothers of Iberica, Dilrus.

Judging from how they fought, inefficiently avoiding killing, the reason is obvious. It's because they can procure the most ‘materials’ there.

In the first battle, we were somehow able to fight because they had many weaknesses, but as this is the work of those demons, I can't expect them to have the same flaws in the second battle.

Harboring such concerns, I held meetings with Kroxx late into the night, before collapsing onto the bed in my lodgings, my body exhausted.

……And then, I opened my eyes.

My head felt somewhat foggy, and I felt drowsy, as if I was still slightly drunk on sleep.

Circulating my mana at the familiar sensation, the murky feeling quickly receded, and I felt as if the entire space was vibrating.

This is.

As I shot up from the bed, a blonde-haired succubus in a nun’s habit stood before me.

When I instinctively reached for my waist, this time, the dagger was there.

I glanced down; my sword was also properly sheathed at my waist.

The succubus, Gremory, who had been quietly watching my actions, spoke.

“I’ve prepared everything this time. It seemed that taking them away only made you feel more resistant.”

With my hand on the hilt of my sword, I spoke.

“Indeed. Is that also why you didn't come in Christine's form?”

Gremory, who seemed to be the same demon as the strangely airheaded succubus from before, nodded her head slightly with a very calm expression.

“I thought a conversation itself might not be possible if I did that again.”

“Where did you throw away that ridiculous way of talking?”

“I usually act that way because it’s better for appearing harmless, but……”

Gremory tilted her head slightly.

Her long blonde hair swayed and fell. After a moment spent choosing her words, the succubus spoke again.

“After showing you that, if I acted that way, I thought you would only find me detestable?”

“Ha.”

I let out a hollow laugh.

A demon with common sense?

Even so, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s allied with a race that treats humans in such a manner.

“Your business.”

Hearing my words, Gremory was quiet for a moment, then slowly closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened her mouth.

“The succubus Gremory……”

Is she intentionally omitting Abyss Corporation or her position as CEO of Lust Inc.?

After a brief pause, she slowly opened her eyes, revealing golden pupils, and the succubus continued her words deliberately.

“proposes a deal to Your Lordship, the Marquis Lafayette.”