novelraw Chapter 179: Krafte War - City Under Fire (10)
Chapter 179: Krafte War - City Under Fire (10)
Episode 179. Krafte War - City of Fire (10)
Malicious shouts and screams erupted from all sides.
From the moment we clashed, it became a chaotic situation where friend and foe were indistinguishable, but anyway, I just had to cut down anyone who charged at me with a bayonet.
Since the enemies were far more numerous anyway!
“Get the Marquis! If we just get the Marquis, this fight is over!”
The Krafte Army charged tenaciously, and I was fighting frantically, my breath growing rougher.
“Gyaaa- Ack, my arm! My aaarm!”
So much for being war machines; even Krafte Army soldiers screamed and bled when their arms were cut off.
“Hoo, hoo….”
After the last soldier who charged, I faced the faltering enemies and caught my breath for a moment.The biggest problem right now was….
Behind the cannon fodder, men who were clearly knights and Count Wittelsbach were conserving their stamina, aiming for me.
“Don’t stop the attack. Wear the Marquis down!”
“Yes, sir!”
Even so, when the officer gave the order, the Krafte Army, though hesitant, began to charge at me again.
It was insane; those madmen were actually charging just because they were ordered to die while draining a bit of my strength.
Just how far did you have to push a person to create this kind of discipline?
As long as there were people who would feel like the world had ended if I were captured, I couldn't let myself be taken here...
It was then that the situation turned around.
“Charge! Aid His Excellency the Marquis!
With Alexandre Berthier's shout, the Revolutionary Army, which had disappeared from the surroundings, rushed in and began to engage the Krafte Army.
“Stop the encirclement!”
“Damn bastards-!”
Did they manage to hold on because the attacks were focused on me, and the knights were aiming only for me?
No, that wasn't it.
Running on sheer grit and discipline, they somehow continued the offensive, but the Krafte Army wasn't gaining much of an advantage against the Revolutionary Army.
They, too, were human in the end. They were exhausted after repeating the offensive for several days.
Or perhaps the standing army, which had suffered massive casualties from the start, had been leading the offensive only to be torn apart by the grapeshot bombardment, and now most of what remained were conscripted reservists.
“Ha.”
Either way.
There was a glimmer of hope.
“Worthless cannon fodder- Keok?!”
I quickly lunged in, closing with a knight who was about to swing his sword at a Revolutionary soldier as if annoyed, and ran him through the side with my sword.
“Gurgle, keok… La, Lafa….”
I kicked him to pull out my sword, drew a dagger, and threw it behind my back—
“Ugh-”
The knight charging at me with his sword in both hands collapsed with a dagger embedded between his eyes, unable to even let out a proper scream.
“Knights who came to catch me shouldn’t be looking away.”
“Strike Marquis Lafayette-!”
Only then did Count Wittelsbach, who had been watching from behind, give the order, and the knights began to charge at me.
“Ha, that’s more like it. Let the soldiers fight the soldiers, and let the monsters fight the monsters.”
How much time had I bought?
Thirty minutes? An hour?
If I could somehow buy time against the knights, the Revolutionary Army should be able to buy a moment as well.
Feeling my gloves fill with sweat, I readjusted my grip on my sword.
*
No one charged while letting out a pointless shout.
They were all true knights, who knew how to properly handle mana.
Their movements had no excess, and their openings were few.
But-
I parried a sword swinging down diagonally and stepped back to dodge a thrusting blade.
No sooner had I done so than I slashed the arm of a knight about to charge again, and the man who was to follow behind him flinched at the fountain of his comrade's blood—and in that gap, the dagger I had drawn and thrown pierced his magic barrier and embedded itself in his neck.
Two, three.
I snatched the sword dropped by the charging knight and, as I rushed forward, slammed it into the instep of the flinching knight.
“Ah, uwaaaack!”
As I lopped off the head of the screaming man, I seized his sword, filled it with mana, and threw it low.
The sword, letting out a roar as it cut through the air, flew low and cut the ankles of the unprepared knights, leaving them flailing on the ground.
“Aaaaaack-!”
“My leg, my leg-!”
Four, five, six.
Knights are human, too.
They may have trained their bodies to the extreme by cultivating mana, transcending ordinary soldiers, but that was all.
Most have never faced an enemy as strong as themselves, and it was even rarer for them, as nobles, to stand on a dangerous battlefield where their lives were threatened.
It might have been different in Francia, where the civil war was raging, but most of these were knights of the Germania Empire, and anti-emperor faction at that, who hadn't even participated in the last war between Francia and the Empire.
They were absolutely lacking in experience.
Because they were strong, they paradoxically couldn't easily imagine their own end, and their faltering at the sight of those as strong as them being taken down in an instant was even worse than that of an ordinary soldier who had crossed the line of death several times.
“What, you’re not coming?”
“Like a monster…!”
An air of terror and shock emanated from men who were supposed to be braver and more arrogant than anyone.
Was this the sight?
Was this the air?
The battlefield that the Blue Knight, Hubert De Lafayette, saw.
I was still a long way from reaching that man who had charged toward the King while killing hundreds of knights.
How far did I have to go to reach such a level?
Struggling to steady my breathing, I opened my mouth.
“Count Wittelsbach. The last time I saw you, I remember you being a bit more knightly and courageous.”
Didn't he confidently charge at me and challenge me to a duel back then?
But now he was hiding like a rat, concealed behind the knights engaging me in battle.
Just like Stephan D'Artagnan, the captain of the royal guard, who sacrificed all of his hundreds of subordinates while waiting for the Blue Knight to tire.
“Are you planning to kill all your comrades and aim for my neck like D'Artagnan?”
But these men probably weren't his subordinates.
“C-Count Wittelsbach! We can't stop this man on our own!”
“Th-that's right! Help us!”
I could see Count Wittelsbach's brow twitch.
Knights of the Empire. They were likely men dispatched by nobles to aid Krafte, the leader of the anti-emperor faction.
And they were probably nobles who served different feudal lords.
Count Wittelsbach was in a different position from D'Artagnan, who could save his own skin and wear down the Blue Knight while all the other knights died.
In the end, Count Wittelsbach also stepped forward.
Now I would have to be much more careful.
It was true I had thought I should deal with him before I lost more strength, but this one was the real deal.
No sooner had Count Wittelsbach leaped forward than the knights all charged at me at once.
But they were just men who had served different lords.
They had never coordinated with each other.
If men with such drastically different physical abilities failed to even synchronize their breathing, they were worse than a disciplined army moving in perfect unison.
I dodged the rest of the attacks by lunging to one side.
Thwack!
I slashed the waist of a knight who was flustered by the resistance of his magic barrier—
“Aaaack!”
Seven.
I rolled away to create distance and got up.
Only five left now-!
At that moment, a dagger flew in, and I moved on reflex, barely managing to dodge it.
“Ha, Count Wittelsbach. Are you the type who isn't satisfied until you've paid it back in kind?”
That was close.
Honestly, it sent a chill down my spine.
My shoulder was burning; if I had been a little slower, it would have dug right into my collarbone and rendered one of my arms completely useless-
“Hahahahaha!”
What, why is he laughing?
Count Wittelsbach suddenly burst into crazed laughter, making not only me but the other knights flinch.
“...Have you suddenly gone mad?”
“It is a pity, Marquis Lafayette. A true pity.”
As if to belie his silence until now, Count Wittelsbach spoke with a wide grin.
“...What is?”
“That I cannot settle things with you as a knight. However.”
Count Wittelsbach wiped the smile from his face and his eyes widened.
“You must die here.”
…The question of what he was talking about vanished as a burning sensation spread across my shoulder.
“Ha, don't tell me. Did the Empire's greatest knight just do something only an assassin would do?”
“The Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army does things assassins do, so what’s the problem?”
That damn bastard….
“It's a poison made by the demons, I'm told. I offer my condolences in advance, and I will at least listen to your last words.”
“Oh, ooooh….”
The look of relief spreading across the faces of the Imperial knights, who hadn't grasped the situation or the conversation, felt like a cheap comedy.
To think they were relieved that a man calling himself a knight had used poison in a surprise attack—I immediately drew a dagger and threw it.
The knight who had been smiling in relief while looking at Count Wittelsbach absurdly took the dagger to the head and died instantly.
Eight.
My shoulder felt like it was on fire.
“Wh-what?”
The bewildered look on the knights' faces was utterly ridiculous.
It seemed I couldn't possibly swing a sword with my right arm, so I threw my sword and caught it with my left hand, readjusting my grip.
“You monster….”
I kicked off the ground, lunging in—
“Ugh…!”
Pouring all my mana into it, I cleaved the knight who tried to block with his sword in two.
Nine.
Was my body burning hot from being doused in enemy blood, or was it a reaction to the poison spreading?
“G-good heavens!”
Seeing Count Wittelsbach and the two surviving knights hastily retreating, I drew a dagger with my right hand.
I couldn't feel much.
But the body, having thrown it thousands, tens of thousands of times, moves as it was carved to, ahead of sensation—and throws.
Crack-
“You crazy-”
The knight, who had been cursing at the sight of the mana-infused dagger piercing his magic barrier, collapsed with it embedded between his eyes.
Ten.
But at the same time, my knees buckled on their own, and I could only barely support myself by plunging my sword into the ground.
“Ha, damn it. To struggle so much in that brief moment…!”
My whole body was hot, and my senses seemed to be gradually fading.
Count Wittelsbach's voice sounded as if it were coming from far away.
Still, I don't let go of the sword.
No, I can't let go.
-I'm sorry, Christine.
In Iberica, I had given up once.
After being barely saved by Gremory's whim, how much had I regretted it?
How much guilt had I felt?
At the very least, I couldn't have come back here just to give up.
I didn't save her, who was fated to die, and come all this way just to have her receive the news of my death.
I must have come for a better future-!
The moment I thought that, I felt something pulsating in my chest.
A knight charged.
For a moment, I almost lost consciousness to the pain that shot through my entire body—but I barely held on.
The fact that I could feel pain meant.
I can move-!
The knight charging at me had a look of disbelief in his eyes as his neck was sliced by my sword.
Eleven.
Only one left now.
“Keuk, haa, haa….”
The breath I exhaled felt almost like that of a beast.
“Wh-what? How on earth?”
“Well, how do you think?”
My whole body was hot as a fireball, tingling, and painful.
Was this thing in my chest, fighting a deadly poison, Divine Power?
Even though I was still on my knees, breathing heavily, Count Wittelsbach still couldn't bring himself to charge at me.
“Why don't you come? As you can see, I'm at death's door.”
“H-how can you go that far?”
“What about it? I'm still alive, aren't I? So I fight.”
I can still move.
So I can fight.
I won't give up.
What else matters?
“I'm the one who's curious, Count Wittelsbach. Why are you going this far?”
“Wh-what….”
He was wavering.
I didn't know to what extent the Divine Power was neutralizing the poison, but I didn't know how long I could hold on.
“At our first meeting, at least, you were a knightly man. Do you now resort to such vile tricks that abandon your honor? Even I, who has cast honor aside, never thought of coating my dagger with a demon's poison.”
“Y-you are a threat to the Empire! You must be brought down!”
“Ah, so you're such a loyal subject of the Empire that you sided with Krafte, the leader of the anti-emperor faction? I heard your Empress is busy suppressing a rebellion by the nobles, yet here you are, the Empire's greatest sword, colluding with the enemy.”
“I have merely joined hands with the enemy of my enemy! It is a temporary matter, by no means-”
“I'd be very interested to see what Grand Duke Leopold, who died in utmost loyalty to the Empire, would say if he saw you now.”
Rage boiled over on Count Wittelsbach's face in an instant.
He charged, letting out a shout that was almost a scream.
The screams my whole body was letting out were a hope that my body was resisting enough to feel pain.
A moving body was proof that I could still fight.
I immediately kicked off the ground and leaped at him.
“Wh-what!”
Count Wittelsbach hastily blocked with his sword, but the Mithril Sword, into which I had poured all my remaining mana, tore through his magic barrier and split his sword in half.
“Impossible….”
Hearing the sound of blood gushing, I rolled across the floor.
I barely managed to roll over and lie on my back, looking at the sky.
I need to get up, but the sky is spinning and my whole body aches as if pricked by needles.
-Won't a day come when the two of us can comfortably give our sincere thanks to God together?
It wasn't for nothing that Eris's voice came to mind in this situation, was it?
…If I survive this, I should really go to a church and give a confession.
The moment I thought that, plink-
I heard the sound of a water droplet hitting the ground.
Then a few more times.
Soon, it began to pour rain.
Just as the place, once filled with the madness and shouts of the battlefield, became filled with the sound of rain and felt strangely quiet.
A commotion began to rise from behind.
…Have the reinforcements finally arrived?
I tried to force myself up, but my body cruelly betrayed my expectations.
If a fleeing Krafte soldier were to stab me with a bayonet, it would be tough to even dodge.
Move, move-
Just as I was thinking that, I heard footsteps.
The sound of someone splashing through the water, walking directly this way.
I moved only my head to look in that direction, and a self-deprecating smile escaped my lips.
It was the other person who spoke first.
“Pierre de Lafayette.”
I answered.
“...Gilles de Lionel.”