CH 49

Two thousand defenders against twenty-four thousand attackers.

The battle began with the Asgard forces completely outnumbered.

The battle will be over in less than a few minutes if all goes well.

In reality, however, 一the battle was decided in an instant.

“Captain! The enemy is coming this way!”

“5th squad, support to the south, 6th squad, stand by! Anybody injured, get out of there now! “

The time of the battle changes every time, and the first time they had already failed here.

He waited for fifteen minutes, wondering when that moment would come.

More enemy soldiers are now manning the walls.

“Captain! They might break through soon! “

“Slow down! Fire carefully! “

Then he waits for about ten minutes more.

The time will come when they reach the point where he thinks they can get over the wall.

If he fails at this point, he has lost.

The north side of the fort.

From the direction of the steep slope of the precipice, he hears a shout that the enemy has attacked.

“Hans! A cavalry squadron is coming down from the northern cliff! “

“Oh, ohhh!? They’re really here!”

It was a surprise attack from a place no one expected.

While Graham’s group was holding off the invasion of the fort, the enemy moved a detachment.

They moved as if they were falling from the sky.

The enemy soldiers are riding down the cliff.

It was a sight that even Hans, who had been told in advance that the enemy would use this strategy, could not believe his eyes.

“I’m surprised that Eastern Count is really here. It’s scary to be so far ahead of the game.”

“Umm, hmm. I wonder how he can predict something like this.”

The horsemen and riders come running down the steep slope.

They are the elite of the Counts of Vanargand, and they are the ones who have the power to change the course of the war.

At the end of the slope they ride down is the fortress in which Klein and his men are holed up.

In his second defense, he was overrun by an unexpected ambush force.

In his third defense, the fortress was breached because they were unprepared for the surprise troops.

In terms of simple military strength, the Asgard soldiers can be said to be overwhelmed ―the maximum strength of the Eastern Count army has been deployed here.

“Get in position! Do not let them through!”

“I didn’t know I’d be dragged into this… haha, it’s an ironclad situation. It really is.”

Three hundred men led by Hans line up to half-encircle the space where the enemy is running down.

The enemy is coming in like a storm.

But more precisely, there are warehouses around the place where the horses come down.

There are piles of supplies that Trek was bringing in.

“Well then, Hans, I hope you’re willing to die to protect them.”

“Uh-huh. We have to do this… It’s all right. Everyone here is a warrior.”

The formation is complete, although it relies on the bravery of its subordinates.

Hans tried desperately to calm down, telling himself that this would somehow hold off the enemy.

Although Trek and his fifty archers were behind him, they had not yet fired their arrows.

One out of five horsemen who had come down from the sky had failed to land and were stuck.

Still, the remaining 800 or so riders are alive and well.

They began to attack one by one, starting with those who had landed on the ground first.

“All of you! Prepare to attack!”

They can’t all come down at once.

At first, there were 300 defenders and 50 cavalrymen exchanging fire.

Within a few dozen seconds, it turns into a battlefield of three hundred against two hundred.

Before long, the number of enemies explodes.

“They’re about to turn the tables on us! Not yet! “

“This is just like fishing. If you are in a hurry, you will miss the big fish.”

“……Trek, you’re a big fish too.”

It was a strange picture that the man with the least fighting power was the calmest.

At any rate, when the dismounted cavalrymen were more than halfway down, a man with a flashy helmet appeared.

A man with a gaudy helmet leaped out on a splendidly built horse.

“I’m not interested in small fry! Where is Viscount Asgard?”

He is dignified.

The leader who led the cavalry in past battles went into battle.

General of the separate unit.

Everyone could see that a powerful enemy had appeared.

The moment a powerful enemy appears, and the enemy army is about to attack Trek moves.

“Now! Load…. fire! “

“Finally! “

At his signal.

Fire arrows were fired simultaneously at the supply depot.

“This is, What the―! ?”

The sound of hundreds of schwoof-, schwoof-, schwoof- Hundreds of sounds are chained together to form a red trail.

All of the fire arrows are finished as flaming torches in a few seconds.

And then… They ignite the large amount of oil that has been collected in the name of “keeping warm”.

Immediately, the surrounding area burst into flames.

“Who, Aaaaaaaaa! ?”

“Gyaaaaaaaw!!!”

“H-hey! Don’t push! Don’t come down! Aaahhh! ?”

The fire spreads quickly, causing small explosions in various places.

The fire spread not only to the supplies piled up in the area but also to the fortress in an instant.

The elite troops of the Eastern Count, who were half surrounded and on the side of the cliff, were lost in the sea of fire in an instant.

It doesn’t matter how much bravery you have when you are engulfed in the inferno of fire.

The pillar of fire, which scorched to the sky, equally burned the strong and the weak.

The flames run along the northern wall to the east, where the Count’s army is attacking.

“Keep the fuse burning! Oil jars! Start throwing! “

“We’ve made it….”

The huts, the fort’s walls, and the accumulated supplies are of no concern.

The soldiers under Trek’s command burn everything at random.

The fire, which started in the north of the fort, spread east and west.

Soon the fire had begun to spread to the center of the fort.

The defenders repelled the surprise attackers without inflicting too much damage to the fort.

“But we still have more than 20,000 enemies to deal with.”

The surprise attack by the north was prevented by means other than military force.

However, they were only able to defeat about 800 there.

In terms of numbers, this is only about three percent of their whole army.

While he sighs that there is still a long way to go, the men given to Trek continue to spread the fire.

“… Uh, Lord Trek. Shouldn’t we start retreating now that we’ve done our job?”

“We’ll retreat as soon as we run out of supplies.”

“O, okay.”

Soon after, they ran out of oil and were the first to retreat.

They fled before their master Klein.

So far, everything is going according to his plan.

* * *

The fire comes from the north side of the fort, and the enemy army is destroyed.

Then it was Graham’s turn again.

“Th-they set fire to the north side! We’re screwed! All troops retreat! “

His voice is all acting, from his gestures of agitation to his voice of being turned upside down with impatience.

All of his reactions are feigned.

But the enemy and most of the allies do not see it that way.

They honestly believed what came out of the mouth of the commander-in-chief, Graham.

Especially the enemy soldiers, almost all of whom thought Count Vanargand’s raiding party had set the fire.

Only a few of Asgard’s commanding officer class knew this was an act.

“Protect the Viscount! Abandon the fort!”

“Retreat!  Don’t be late! “

Since they had not yet penetrated the fort, they would not be pursued as they retreated.

They pull out as fast as possible and rush to Klein’s side.

“Mission accomplished! “

“Okay, let’s get started.”

The Hans, who had fled earlier, and the Grahams, who were just now escaping, had all their horses on the west side, which was unusual for the Asgard family.

Some rode in pairs, but they were the first to escape.

From the beginning, it was a given that they would escape here.

“…. General, don’t die, okay?”

“I won’t die. I’ll take care of it.”

Graham turned around one last time and said to Klein with a serious look on his face.

Klein kept his composure even at the last moment.

He is not a very strong lord, but he has a lot of guts.

Graham thought and turned to the west.

“If you fall or delay, you will die! All those behind! Follow me quickly! “

The men all run along the road to the west.

And then. While the allied soldiers were trying to escape from the fort, the general stepped forward.

Klein shouts to the enemy soldiers who have entered the fort.

“Here I am !! ! It is me, Klein von Asgard! ! !”

The army is defeated in a night attack.

Among them was the head of a general who had not been properly escorted.

Taking him down would surely give them the greatest military advantage.

The enemy soldiers who recognized Klein’s figure changed the color of their eyes.

“It’s scary no matter how many times you look at it… Okay, come on, Swen.”

The enemy rushes toward Klein as he runs away on his horse.

It seemed that the soldiers who had climbed over the barrier had removed the bolt cans, and the cavalrymen rushed into the area one after another.

All of them are aiming for Klein’s head.

“Come on. They’re better than us on horseback. I’ve got to get my head in the game.”

He muttered to himself as he rode away on the road to Asgard.