Water Magician

Vol 3. Chapter 670: Battle of the Three Eastern Emperors

“For what reason do you violate Darwei territory?”

“All lands under heaven belong to the Choouchi Empire. The rightful ruler has merely returned.”

“Do not prattle such madness. There is not even a scrap of Choouchi in the historical records.”

“We shall teach the ignorant people of Darwei that their true ruler has returned.”

Between the Darwei army and the Choouchi Imperial Army facing one another, envoys from each side proclaimed their own legitimacy and denounced the other side’s wickedness.

They were not, by any means, merely trading insults.

In the Eastern Countries, exchanges like this were sometimes carried out before armies clashed on the battlefield.

The Choouchi Empire had secured Shuntai Fortress on the south bank of the North River.

The Darwei army had marched north to intercept the Choouchi Imperial Army, which had remained there without moving.

And so the battlefield had naturally been set on the Piurai Plains stretching south of Shuntai Fortress.

The Choouchi Imperial Army deployed on the north side of the Piurai Plains.

The Darwei army deployed on the south side of the Piurai Plains.

Both armies were led by their emperors.

“As expected, the emperors themselves aren’t standing at the very front arguing with each other.”

“Well, of course not. If that really happened, Darwei would be in trouble, wouldn’t it?”

“Really? His Majesty the Emperor on this side is by no means foolish. His heart for the people is genuine. He himself said that after Crown Prince Jun died, he had gone vacant inside, but now he looks as though he’s regained his former strength. I’m sure he wouldn’t lose an argument either!”

“No, not in that sense. This side is human, and the other side is Phantomkin, right? If they attacked, it would be over instantly.”

“Ah...”

At Abel’s point, Ryo fell silent.

Certainly, it could not be said that such a possibility did not exist.

“A-anyway, later, I’ll try suggesting to His Majesty the Emperor that he wear .”

“No, it seems that exchange was merely formal. It’s already ended.”

The envoys who had been asserting their legitimacy returned to their respective camps.

Naturally, no one expected victory or defeat to be decided by a “claim of legitimacy.”

The two of them were in one corner of the Darwei main camp.

Near the staff officers of Prince Ryun.

Prince Ryun himself was attending close by Emperor Tsuin, but his Chief Attendant Linshun, Attendant Wenshu, and Captain Lu Yao were nearby.

There also seemed to be several large pieces of equipment, and from time to time Captain Lu Yao and members of the magical bombardment unit of the Prince’s 羽林 army under her command could be seen adjusting them, so they were probably alchemy tools.

Naturally, Ryo was curious, but he could not very well get in the way, so he limited himself to stealing glances.

That Abel, standing beside him, was watching this and giving a small shake of his head was a secret.

“The enemy is moving!”

The lookout soldier, who had been peering through a spyglass the whole time, shouted.

“As expected, their first move is to send in monsters.”

“As predicted—Goblins.”

“To think Goblins of all things are advancing that neatly.”

Captain Lu Yao and Chief Attendant Linshun nodded as though it was as expected, while Attendant Wenshu stared in surprise at a march far too orderly for Goblins.

“The pig-headed ones... Orcs, was it? I’ve seen them advance in formation before, but Goblins are always sloppy, aren’t they?”

“Sloppy...? Well, I get what you mean, Ryo. Orcs are said to be fairly intelligent, but Goblins aren’t. Seeing them march in good order ought to be impossible.”

“Which means the Phantomkin can completely control monsters, right? Not just giving rough instructions like walk, attack, kill them, but full control.”

“That’s what it means.”

Previously, the monsters that the two of them and Prince Ryun’s party had faced on the Green Manor Plain had been Orcs.

Monsters led by General Yun.

Orcs were said to be comparatively intelligent and capable of fighting in an organized manner even in the wild, so while it had been somewhat surprising, the level of shock had been nothing like this.

Goblins were not the same as Goblins.

“That said, judging by the looks on Chief Attendant Linshun’s and Captain Lu Yao’s faces, this still seems to be within expectations, so the army’s high command probably won’t lose its footing.”

“I see.”

Abel pointed it out, and Ryo nodded.

Even if something exceeded expectations, as long as it did not exceed them by too much, it was not a problem.

Apparently that was true in everything.

“Approximately three thousand Goblins!”

The report was followed immediately by orders from the Darwei main camp.

“Have the magic corps intercept them!”

The one issuing the order was Commander Tin Meu of the Forbidden Army.

The fact that he was not first seeking orders from anyone in particular meant this was probably the procedure as planned.

Under his command, the Darwei magic corps launched a mass bombardment.

Several thousand fire-attribute attack spells flew.

“Amazing.”

“It really is quite a sight.”

Even Ryo and Abel could not help but be impressed.

And yet...

Before they could strike the Goblins, every last one of those bombardment spells was deflected in midair.

“...What?”

“Something’s floating there.”

Ryo stared in shock, and Abel, making use of his sharp vision, pointed it out.

At those words, Ryo hurriedly raised his spyglass.

“Curse talismans!”

Yes, there they were.

The enemy was Phantomkin.

Those “vessels” without “contents” were said to be able to use curse arts.

They could send curse talismans flying.

Most likely, most of the Phantomkin were still hidden inside Shuntai Fortress, which they had secured as their bridgehead.

“It’s a considerable distance to the fortress... can they really send curse talismans that far?”

“When Queen Ilyaja was attacked in the Suje Kingdom before, what I heard back then was that they couldn’t send them over such long distances.”

That had been after Ilyaja—still a princess before her accession at the time—had been summoned by the Crown Princess and then attacked there.

“When the Phantom King is present, does it boost their abilities in that sort of area too?”

“Boost? You mean strengthen them? If so, that does seem possible.”

“Marie was a magician, but Phantomkin and the Phantom King feel more aligned with curse arts than with magic.”

“Yeah. Racial traits, maybe? Perhaps they have something like that.”

Abel agreed with Ryo’s observation.

“We still know far too little about Phantomkin.”

“We don’t even know enough about ourselves as humans. Isn’t it only natural that we don’t know another race?”

“But we’re fighting them. Know the enemy and know yourself, and you need not fear a hundred battles.”

“Sun Tzu really was incredible.”

Abel nodded in admiration.

Protected by hundreds of curse talismans floating in the air like shields, the Goblins continued their orderly advance.

In contrast, the Darwei army remained motionless, as though they had no answer.

“They can’t possibly have failed to anticipate curse talismans...”

“It’s possible they didn’t expect curse talismans to come from this far away.”

Both Abel and Ryo were concerned by the Darwei army’s lack of movement.

But when they looked around, no one seemed panicked.

By “around,” they meant Chief Attendant Linshun and Captain Lu Yao.

Attendant Wenshu did seem to have a slight frown on his face, though...

The Goblin unit kept advancing, with curse talismans floating before it, but then, at a certain moment, every curse talisman in the air dropped.

“Huh?”

“They fell.”

The next moment, as though they had been waiting for that instant, magical bombardment flew from the Darwei army.

Several thousand attack spells struck the Goblins directly.

“What in the world...?”

“A magic-blocking wall.”

The one who answered Ryo’s question was Captain Lu Yao, who was also an alchemist.

“A magic-blocking wall? It blocks magic?”

“Yes. It’s an alchemy tool we set up in advance around where those curse talismans just fell.”

“There’s something like that...? An alchemy tool?”

“Even calling it a tool, it’s rather large-scale, and it takes time both to install and to activate. Even Darwei does not have many of them. In fact, Prince Churei seems to have been caught up in the melee before one could be installed and activated, simply because it was too large an undertaking.”

“But being able to cut off the supply of magical power is incredible.”

Ryo was thrilled by this new alchemy tool Captain Lu Yao had just described.

The curse talismans used by curse-art users could fly and generate spells because magical power was supplied to them from the curse-art user.

The talismans themselves did not carry magic stones or anything of that kind.

So if that supply of magical power could be cut off, it was only natural that the curse talismans would lose their effect and fall.

The fact that something like that had been installed and activated beforehand meant this too must have been within Darwei’s expectations.

“Darwei’s reading of the battlefield is incredible.”

“Because Prince Ryun is here.”

When Ryo praised them honestly, Captain Lu Yao gave the reason.

Apparently Prince Ryun was highly capable as a commander as well.

“Damn it! What is going on?!”

On the wall of Shuntai Fortress, where the Choouchi Imperial Army’s main camp was established, Emperor Wangshan Ku shouted.

Staff officers surrounded him, but all remained silent.

Among them were some who could guess what had happened, but they did not bother to offer an opinion.

Because Emperor Wangshan Ku, in his excited state, would not listen to such counsel anyway.

It was best to wait for him to calm down.

Though sometimes, of course, that took rather a while...

“There was nothing about that in the information Linsui sent over before!”

“Most likely, Linsui himself did not know of it.”

“Fool! That’s exactly why I despise incompetence!”

Linsui, once said to be Prince Bin’s closest confidant... was somehow the one being cursed out.

“If curse talismans cannot be used, then so be it. Send in the armored Ogres! Put them out front and advance the Goblins behind them!”

Emperor Wangshan Ku ordered a brute-force assault.

The staff officers around him did not particularly try to stop him.

They were persuading themselves that it too was one possible method...

Watching this from a little way off atop the wall was another figure.

“Our emperor truly is terrible at war.”

The Phantom King shook his head with a wry smile.

“But that too is proceeding according to plan.”

“Indeed. I very much hope he continues with brute force. That is why we gave him only monsters and kept the ‘vessels’ under our own command.”

Taoran in his black robe spoke, and the Phantom King supplemented the meaning.

“The more loudly he moves, the better the distraction.”

“The preparations for {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} General Yun and the scout force are complete.”

The Phantom King nodded at the new report Taoran delivered.

“Armored Ogres should be enough to reach them. All the real movement begins once the battle shifts to close quarters. Now then... let us watch a little longer, this battle between men and monsters.”

That movement could be seen from the Darwei main camp as well.

“An iron wall?”

“It’s moving.”

Constant use of the spyglass was tiring, so both Ryo and Abel normally relied on the naked eye.

Because of that, they could make out a great line of light-reflecting metal arranged like a wall, but not what exactly it was.

“The enemy is advancing Ogres in armor!”

The lookout soldier attached to the main camp shouted.

He was always looking through a spyglass.

Ryo found himself thinking that must be exhausting...

“You could go relieve him, Ryo.”

“I think the proper thing would be to make use of Abel’s sharp eyes.”

In the end, neither of them moved.

They both felt that each person ought to fulfill their own role.

Yes, they did not think it was a good thing to intrude into someone else’s sphere of responsibility.

“So they put armor on Ogres and turned them into moving shields.”

“That is an astonishingly muscle-brained idea.”

Both Abel and Ryo were dumbfounded by how direct the thinking was.

They were dumbfounded, but they also understood that it was effective.

And at the same time, that it was something other countries probably could not do.

“To begin with, you can’t really put armor on Ogres, can you?”

“They’d never obey such an order.”

“The ability to control monsters really is incredible.”

“It feels like all kinds of things no one ever thought possible before are going to start appearing.”

Both Ryo and Abel sighed.

“Hmm.”

Abel tilted his head.

“What is it, Abel?”

“No, I was just thinking I’ve seen this somewhere before.”

“You mean déjà vu?”

“Déjà...?”

“A sense of familiarity. That feeling of, I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before even though that shouldn’t be possible. But it’s probably just your imagination.”

Ryo declared it firmly.

“No, I remember now. The Federation.”

“The Federation?”

“When the Handaru Federation invaded the Principality of Inberi.”

“Ah! The time they put artificial golems in front and assaulted the city!”

Now both Abel and Ryo remembered.

Against the city where the Duke of Inberi had holed up, with a fake Veydora installed there, the Federation had launched a brute-force siege with artificial golems at the very front.

The attacks by Veydora from the city had been deflected by the golems in the first rank, and in the end the city had fallen.

“But the one leading the Federation then was that regent, right?”

“Right. Lord Aubrey.”

“Yes, yes, Lord Aubrey. I heard he was a famed commander, renowned for his skill at war.”

“That’s right.”

“Then if this is a similar tactic, doesn’t that mean this method of putting armor on Ogres and deploying them in the foremost line is the tactic of a commander at that level?!”

Ryo was stunned.

At the thought that there might be such an extraordinary commander on the Phantomkin side.

“...No. Is it, though?”

But Abel was skeptical.

“Between this and the Goblins earlier, I can’t say it feels like someone with good sense.”

“T-that earlier Goblin move might have been deliberate.”

“...You think?”

“No, sorry, on second thought... maybe they really aren’t that skillful.”

In the end, Ryo reversed his own earlier statement.

The exact same sort of tactic, yet when a famed commander used it, it was praised as brilliant, and when someone else used it, people said, Hmm.

The world was unfair.

But no matter what the tactic was, it would produce some kind of result.

Success, or failure...

“All attacks by arrows are being deflected by the armor and are ineffective!”

“Magical attacks are ineffective as well—new curse talismans are floating above them!”

Reports came in to the Darwei main camp.

“Once they reach the magic-blocking wall again, those curse talismans should peel away. But...”

“With that armor—and on Ogres, no less—even direct magic hits won’t stop them from charging in.”

“Even if the Ogres are brought down, it will become close combat with the Goblins following behind them under cover.”

That was the conversation passing among the staff in the main camp.

Emperor Tsuin looked at Commander Tin Meu and spoke.

“Tin, move ten thousand of the Forbidden Army.”

“Understood!”

Then Commander Tin turned and gave a single nod behind him.

The one who received it was Yi Shima, deputy commander of the Forbidden Army.

He was the man who would command the Forbidden Army on the front line.

A commander in his early thirties, forged under Commander Tin and seasoned by real combat many times.

He had also once intercepted the southward-moving Peiyu army under Prince Ryun’s command.

“They’ve crossed the magic-blocking wall.”

“The curse talismans fell away!”

Abel said it, making use of his sharp eyes, and Ryo exclaimed excitedly.

“The armor’s started running.”

“They’re still charging straight in. The terror of pure muscle.”

Abel and Ryo could both see the armored Ogres beginning to run.

Naturally, the Goblins behind them began running as well.

After a short while, something was thrown all at once from the Darwei army toward the charging Ogres.

What was thrown were pairs of iron balls, each pair connected by a rope, each ball about the size of a fist.

They tangled around the legs of the charging Ogres... sometimes around both legs, sometimes only one.

But either way, the Ogres lost their balance and crashed down.

“Bolas!”

“Connected weights, huh? A slightly larger kind?”

Ryo shouted the name of the weapon from Earth, and Abel gave the name used in the kingdom.

“Huh? Abel, you know that weapon?”

“Yeah. The Central Countries have them too. But the ones thrown just now are a little larger. Maybe they prepared bigger ones specifically for use against Ogres.”

Even while the two were talking, events were continuing to unfold.

The moment the armored Ogres stumbled and fell, the Darwei army unleashed a mass magical bombardment against the Goblins running behind them.

Even Goblins under command seemed likely to panic if the Ogres in front of them suddenly fell and magic started raining down on them.

Their feet stopped.

“Charge!”

Without giving even a moment’s pause, the order went out for the Forbidden Army to charge.

If they were within range to throw bolas, that meant the distance had already dropped below ten meters.

In military terms, they were already at shouting distance.

The Darwei army had held themselves back even as gigantic Ogres two and a half meters tall came rushing at them.

Ordinary soldiers would never have managed it.

Fear would have driven them to break.

But these were the Forbidden Army.

The Emperor’s own guard.

The elite of the elite in all Darwei.

And the reason they were the elite of the elite was simply the strength of their hearts.

Because they had restrained themselves and endured to the utmost, the force of the recoil was immense.

Ten thousand Forbidden Army troops lowered their spears and charged.

Even armored, and precisely because they were armored, the fallen Ogres were slow to move, and so the soldiers thrust spears into the gaps in their armor and finished them off.

As for the Goblins, it was one-sided slaughter.

“The men of the Forbidden Army are incredible.”

“Goblins are no match for them.”

“Do you think this whole plan was laid out with all this in mind?”

“The fact that they’d prepared larger connected weights says it probably was. Impressive, Prince Ryun.”

Both Ryo and Abel thought highly of Prince Ryun.

That was why they had helped him in the race for the throne in the first place.

And because of that, they could not help but be astonished at Prince Ryun showing power even beyond the high estimation they already had of him.

“We should absolutely take him back to the kingdom and have him plan the kingdom army’s campaigns...”

“That’s impossible.”

Abel dismissed Ryo’s mutter immediately.

Naturally, the two were speaking in hushed voices.

Even as a joke, Chief Attendant Linshun and Captain Lu Yao, who deeply admired Prince Ryun, were right nearby...

“I wonder if the kingdom has any commanders or strategists with that kind of incredible foresight.”

“Phelps is that type.”

“Mr. Phelps? You mean Marquis Heinlein’s heir, the B-rank adventurer, the handsome one, the man whose popularity with women is even greater than yours, Abel—that Mr. Phelps?”

“...I don’t know why you felt the need to add that last part, but yes, that Phelps. Though to begin with, his father’s depth of reading in matters of war is incredible too. That whole family must just be good at that sort of thing.”

Abel gave a small shrug.

Apparently, the kingdom too had capable people at its center.

“To begin with, is there anything at all that our Chancellor, Marquis Heinlein, is bad at?”

“...Cooking, maybe?”

“He’s bad at cooking?”

“I heard a rumor like that once.”

“Well, he is a marquis, and the Chancellor besides. He wouldn’t have any need to cook, would he?”

“No. He wouldn’t.”

Every so often, there were people who produced top-class results at everything they did.

If they were on your side, nothing could be more reassuring.

So long as you did not let them cook...

Even while the two spoke quietly like that, the situation continued to evolve.

“The Forbidden Army is overwhelming, but the enemy just keeps sending in more and more.”

“Are their monsters inexhaustible?”

“I’m curious where they’re even getting all those monsters. If Phantomkin actually have the ability to create monsters, that would be a disaster.”

“Monsters do keep coming one after another, but the Forbidden Army is handling it well too. They’re rotating in groups of around a thousand.”

“Ah, you’re right. They’re swapping with the Forbidden Army troops here in the main camp. So they’re giving them breaks at proper intervals. Is that only possible because the front line is this close?”

“One advantage of mobilizing a great army is that you can keep fighting while resting part of it. The troops being rested also become reserve strength for when something happens.”

“That’s true.”

Ryo nodded at Abel’s explanation.

Breaking the many with the few was romantic, but it was not the orthodox path of war.

Darwei was a great empire.

That was likely why it had accumulated this much know-how in the use of large armies.

“But this... is it a kind of stalemate?”

“You could call it that. Will one side or the other get impatient and unleash a major move?”

“With these two armies, the side that gets impatient would definitely be theirs, right?”

“I completely agree.”

And then the lookout shouted.

“Enemy... many flying objects!”

But the people in the main camp only tilted their heads.

“Flying objects?”

They each looked through their spyglasses.

Naturally, from this distance they could not yet visually identify what those “flying objects” were, having only just left Shuntai Fortress.

But there was a water-attribute magician who could grasp movement within several hundred meters without even seeing it.

“No way...”

Yet even Ryo’s expression was one of shock.

“What is it, Ryo?”

“The flying objects the lookout just shouted about are...”

The lookout shouted again.

“Wyverns! Wyverns—more than fifty of them!”