Episode 80
The kingdom was ablaze.
But the pillaging that swept across the island of Britannia was no longer the work of mere deserters.
There had never been any deserters to begin with. It was all a ruse by the Empire to scatter the kingdom’s forces.
Moreover, the fleet carrying 20,000 Imperial soldiers had no intention of returning to the continent across the Strait of Calais.
While the kingdom basked in the false peace of the Empire’s supposed retreat, the fleet turned its prows and spread out along the outskirts of Britannia, seizing key landing sites. Soon after, a massive plundering campaign by the Imperial forces began across the island.
Such is the nature of war.
Kill or be killed, take or be taken from. Kill before you are killed, seize before you are seized.
And around that time, a torrential downpour began to drench the entire kingdom of Britannia.
Rain poured down.
“We die where we stand!”
Amidst the deluge, the Black Armor Company shouted defiantly at the approaching cavalry.
On both flanks, Imperial longbowmen drove stakes into the ground to form barricades, and the Imperial cavalry dismounted to fight alongside the heavily armored infantry of the Black Armor Company.
An unbreakable formation.
In the pouring rain, the Imperial troops held their ground on the hill, with a deep mire separating them from the enemy, thanks to days of relentless rain.
The cavalry of the Britannia Kingdom attempted a full charge.
The kingdom’s mobile strike force aimed to halt the Imperial pillaging and swiftly annihilate the enemy. With the Imperial forces scattered and pillaging across the land, the kingdom’s cavalry, superior in mobility and tactics, should have had the upper hand.
It should have been that way.
“Crush those Imperial bastards!”
As the cavalry charged, the Black Armor Company stood firm.
The ‘Black Prince’s’ dark surcoat fluttered, gathering black magic at his fingertips.
“Black Barrel, ‘Gatling Style,’ ‘5.56x45mm.’”
A living, writhing malice was unleashed.
Its power was deliberately tempered.
Dale’s goal wasn’t to annihilate the cavalry. There were several reasons for this.
The enemy cavalry was too numerous to be wiped out with a single spell. Sometimes, leaving the enemy alive could have a greater impact than killing them.
But more importantly, victory achieved through the movement of armies, rather than individual heroics, was what he sought.
Death swept through. A hail of shadowy bullets pierced armor, shattered skulls, and scattered blood, brains, and entrails.
“What… what is that…?”
“It’s him, the ‘Black Prince’s’ magic…”
“We’re all going to die, every last one of us!”
Fear spread like a plague among the cavalry.
“Retreat, retreat! Turn your horses around!”
The first wave of cavalry broke ranks and collapsed in disarray.
“Second line, charge! Cover the retreating cavalry!”
The second wave charged, entangling with the retreating cavalry and sinking into the mire.
In the mud, made treacherous by days of rain, retreating and advancing soldiers collided, pushing and toppling each other.
Mud clung to the high-adhesion plates of their armor, dragging them down like a swamp.
A swamp of death.
In their desperation to escape, knights reached out like drowning men, pulling each other down, sometimes crushed under the weight of their own armor. The enemy’s superior numbers were self-destructing.
It was the same tactic the Maiden had used to defeat an Imperial force nearly four times her own.
”…”
Dale watched the enemy’s self-destruction with indifference.
“What do you think?”
He finally spoke, addressing the ‘prisoner’ who stood silently beside him.
“Is this the ideal kingdom Lady Aurelia envisioned?”
”…”
In the swamp of death, the knights of the kingdom floundered.
The Maiden Aurelia was there too.
Helpless before the slaughter of her knights, unable to lift a finger due to the binding magic of the white mages. She bit her lip in frustration.
It wasn’t a visible restraint like handcuffs or chains. But Aurelia was now just a ‘powerless maiden.’
A mere peasant’s daughter, forced to witness the downfall of her homeland.
“The time has come.”
Watching the chaos among the enemy cavalry, Dale spoke.
“Kill them all.”
A display of the ‘Black Prince’s’ cruelty and infamy.
“The commander’s orders!”
“Kill them all!”
The Black Armor Company, formed solely for Dale, finally moved. Five hundred heavily armored cavalrymen.
Then, Dale issued orders to the rest of the Imperial forces.
“Mount the knights in the first line on their warhorses and charge.”
“Prepare for a rear assault by enemy detachments.”
“Archers, hold your positions behind the barricades, but cease fire.”
Orders delivered with precision and timing.
The dismounted Imperial knights, who had helped halt the enemy cavalry’s charge alongside the Black Armor Company, mounted their waiting warhorses. Following Dale’s orders, they began a flanking maneuver.
“Charge!”
It wasn’t a victory snatched from overwhelming odds.
Even with a disparity in numbers, the situation was different. The enemy was anxious, while they had the advantage of terrain.
It was a battle they were destined to win.
Winning a battle that must be won is easy.
But at the same time, there’s nothing more crucial than winning a battle that must be won.
Like the Empire, which lost a massive force to the Maiden’s rebels, or the fools who surrendered the impregnable fortress of Bell Fort and lost half their troops.
That’s war, and Dale understood this truth more than anyone. Defeat in war often begins with failing to win the battles that must be won.
“Lady Aurelia should have considered this.”
Dale spoke calmly, as if this scene was the result of her blind idealism.
”…”
In the pouring rain, the Maiden Aurelia bit her lip.
Under the command of the Imperial General and ‘Black Prince,’ the Imperial forces were slaughtering the kingdom’s knights floundering in the mire.
20,000 Imperial soldiers spread across Britannia, pillaging as they went.
Each time, the cavalry sent to repel them was defeated, and the entire kingdom was engulfed in the flames of plunder.
It was ‘inevitable.’
Soldiers need food to fight. But the war had dragged on longer than expected, and the Empire’s supplies were running low.
The large quantities of military supplies given to free Philip had been a critical blow.
Thus, the easiest way to solve supply issues in war was simple.
Take someone else’s food. Pillage.
Around that time, an Imperial envoy arrived in the capital of Britannia, Reims.
He came to deliver a letter from Dale, the supreme commander of the Imperial forces, to King Charles.
The letter contained a single sentence.
── Si vis pacem, para bellum.
(If you want peace, prepare for war.)
Around that time.
The Imperial forces ceased their indiscriminate pillaging across the kingdom and began to gather at a single point to end the war.
The capital of Britannia, Reims, which the Maiden Aurelia had taken bloodlessly from the Black Prince.
Some time later, in the Imperial territory of Burgundy on the island of Britannia.
The Maiden Aurelia was in a chamber of the fortress.
Though the binding magic of the white mages suppressed her abilities, she was treated with the utmost courtesy, as if she were a high-ranking noble captive.
“Soon, the Imperial forces will begin the siege to reclaim the capital, Reims.”
There, Dale spoke.
“I don’t need your pity.”
Aurelia replied to Dale’s words.
That day, she had seen the vile desires of the Holy Knight directed at her.
The pig king.
Her fate should have been to either become the pig’s broodmare or take her own life before that could happen.
“Why are you protecting me?”
The one who had prevented that fate was the ‘Black Prince,’ and so the Maiden asked.
“Surely you have something to gain from me.”
”…”
“Do you intend to put me on trial and deny my revelations?”
“If I wanted to deny your sanctity, Lady Aurelia.”
Dale replied.
“Handing you over as the pig’s broodmare would be the surest way.”
It was true.
“Then what do you want from me?”
“I simply wish.”
Dale answered.
“For Lady Aurelia to witness the end of this war.”
The end of this war.
“The downfall of one who claimed to be Heaven’s puppet.”
”…”
“Please consider it as Lady Aurelia’s own will.”
“What do you mean?”
Aurelia’s question hung in the air as Dale responded.
“Truly, about ‘the path to save the Kingdom of Britannia.’”
At that moment, in a chamber of the Burgundy Fortress.
“That damned Saxon brat…!”
Count Brandenburg, the Holy Knight, roared in a fury beyond words.
He was well aware that his avatar was the epitome of unspeakable ugliness.
Yet, it was an undeniable reflection of the Holy Knight’s own ideology, and in a way, the beast with the pig’s head was his true self.
Thus, he was willing to endure the disgrace to capture the ‘Holy Maiden.’ But he failed.
All because of the binding oath etched into his heart.
On that very day, the Saxon youth had sealed a geass with his heart and the responsibility for defeat.
“First, in all future battles and operations, you will obey my orders without question.”
“Second, the treatment of any prisoners captured in this battle will be entirely at my discretion.”
Could he have foreseen this from the start? Was even he, the great Count, merely a pawn dancing in the palm of the ‘Black Prince’?
The unbearable humiliation constricted his heart.
Moreover, his lifelong complex had been laid bare for all to see.
Among the Knights of Saint Magdalene, there was not one unaware of his secret.
“I cannot, absolutely cannot let this go…”
He gritted his teeth, staring at the hilt of the Holy Sword Durandal.
Boom, boom, boom.
The sound of war drums echoed, signaling the start of the Siege of Reims.
The Imperial Army, twenty thousand strong, surrounded the capital of the Kingdom of Britannia.
The ‘Black Prince’ of the Saxon House was there as well.
As the supreme commander of the Imperial forces, he kept the captive Holy Maiden by his side.
“Let’s give the people of Reims a chance.”
Dale spoke up.
“A chance…?”
“Persuade them yourself, Lady Aurelia. Urge them to surrender.”
”…”
“I swear on the name of Saxon.”
Dale continued.
“If they surrender peacefully and abandon Reims, there will be no further massacres or pillaging by the Imperial Army.”
“You expect me to trust your word?”
“You don’t need to trust me.”
Dale replied indifferently.
“I only wish for Lady Aurelia to consider it of her own will.”
”…”
Silence fell.
“Give me the chance to persuade them.”
After a long pause, Aurelia nodded and began to walk, escorted by Imperial soldiers, towards the capital of her homeland.
It was then that she heard it.
“──The Empire’s harlot!”
“A witch! The traitor witch has appeared!”
“Get lost, you Imperial whore!”
The jeers rang out.
They weren’t from the Imperial soldiers. They were the voices of the people of the Kingdom of Britannia, whom she was meant to protect.
“Why…?”
At first, she couldn’t comprehend the meaning of their words.
“When the Holy Maiden was captured at Orléans.”
It was then that she heard a voice behind her.
“I spread false information.”
That the Holy Maiden Aurelia had betrayed the kingdom and allied with the Empire to save herself.
”…”
“It took them less than a few weeks to deny everything the Holy Maiden had built.”
Just a few weeks.
“To them now, the Holy Maiden is nothing but a traitor who sold her country to the Empire.”
The entire Kingdom of Britannia had turned its back on the savior they once revered.
“Was it worth it?”
Dale asked.
“Becoming a puppet of the heavens, sacrificing everything to fight for the kingdom.”
”…”
“──Was it truly ‘worth it’?”
Dale asked again. Aurelia could not answer.