Chapter 285 - Episode 278: War of Attrition ④
"Don't give up! Fight! Keep fighting!"
"The enemy is almost at their breaking point! Don't fall back! Hang in there!"
On the left and right sides of the narrow battlefield, Baron Oggoren and Baron Wikander also raised their voices to encourage the infantry they led.
They no longer had the luxury of leisurely supporting the front line by rotating two units. Everyone fought recklessly, continuing to swing their swords, and the officers could do nothing more than appeal to the soldiers' grit, shouting "Fight!" and "Hang in there!"
The Betumia Republic Army surged forward like a tsunami, relying on their numbers, while the Lordberg Kingdom Western Army attempted to hold them back by utilizing the advantage of the terrain. In this quagmire of a battle, the chaos of the battlefield only increased.
Eventually, the Betumia Republic Army began to move in an attempt to break the deadlock.
"This is bad, toward the hill!"
Noein, seeing the enemy's movement, shouted. A portion of the Betumia soldiers had begun to climb the hill on the flank.
Positioned on the hill, striking the enemy's flank, was a crossbow unit of conscripts. They had received no proper melee combat training, and the weapons they held were crossbows incapable of rapid fire. They were far too unreliable to hold back the onslaught of a great army.
"Someone provide cover... damn it, is it impossible?"
Looking left and right, Noein cursed. In a situation where maintaining the status quo was the absolute limit, there was no way anyone had the leeway to support another unit.
If the hill fell, they would be surrounded by the enemy and defeated. Is this the end?
The moment that thought crossed Noein's mind, the situation shifted again.
"Push them back! Kill every last one of these bastards!"
"Remember what these people did to the farmers! If we lose, we'll be the ones turned into disposable slaves next!"
The crossbowmen on the hill began to surge back toward the Betumia Republic Army.
Leading them were the men who served as the leaders of the crossbowmen. They were conscripts from among the general populace, ordinary farmers in their daily lives. Yet now, they became nameless heroes, pulling other farmers along as they charged the enemy.
Some struck the enemy directly with their crossbows, some gripped crossbow bolts in their hands and thrust them into the enemies' heads, and others picked up swords or spears dropped by the enemy to use them. The Betumia soldiers, who had not expected such an aggressive counterattack from peasant soldiers, fell into great confusion.
"Clear the way! Move! Move!"
Furthermore, a voice echoed from the rear. When Noein and the others supporting the front line looked back, a group of cavalry was advancing, managing to secure a path along the right edge of the Western Army's formation.
At the head of the group was none other than Viscount Barassen. Leading a cavalry unit of several dozen riders centered around the Southwestern nobles and their attendants, the Viscount struggled through his own allies before charging straight into the heart of the Betumia Republic Army.
"Char... ch... Charge! Kill the invaders!"
He could not gain sufficient distance for a gallop, but even so, the mass of cavalry was a threat to flesh-and-blood infantry. Viscount Barassen shouted desperately, his voice cracking, as he and his cavalry trampled the Betumia soldiers.
"...Unexpected reinforcements, aren't they?"
"Well, that man is likely desperate too."
While continuing to fight with his gaze fixed on the enemy in front, Noein exchanged words with Yuri.
After all, this battlefield was right in the middle of Viscount Barassen's territory. While Noein and the others had the option to retreat in disorder and survive this place, the moment the Western Army lost, Viscount Barassen's territory and house were guaranteed to be destroyed. He was no longer in a situation where he could say he was afraid of charging.
Due to the unexpected struggle of the crossbowmen and Viscount Barassen, the tide of battle began to tilt in favor of the Western Army.
...
While the general, Noein, fought bravely at the very front of the battle line while encouraging those around him, the staff officer, Frederick Koenitz, managed the entirety of the Western Army from the main camp.
"You may reduce the guard at the main camp! Leave the bare minimum and divert them to cover the vanguard! Also, divert the soldiers who are rescuing the wounded on the battlefield back into the fight! Mobilize lightly wounded soldiers who can still move for the rescue operations! Relay this to the first-aid station!"
"Yes, sir!"
In a situation where manpower was overwhelmingly insufficient, Frederick issued orders with immediate decision-making while monitoring the situation to somehow support the front line.
He would entrust a single instruction to a messenger officer and send them running from the main camp, then issue a new instruction to the next officer. It was a repetition of this process.
"Recruit soldiers from the non-combatants in the rear! I don't care if they are cooks, stable hands, or clergy! Drag out anyone who has legs to walk, hands to grip a weapon, and the will to fight!"
"Understood!"
Sending out another messenger, Frederick happened to look down at the battlefield.
Even from the main camp, he could tell that the courageous counterattack by the crossbowmen and cavalry was showing signs of changing the tide of battle. If he could provide cover for this situation from the main camp, they could survive today as well. Just as he exhaled with that thought...
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack on the main camp—!"
Hearing the voice of a soldier shouting that, Frederick reflexively turned around and drew his sword. The chief attendant of the House of Viscount Koenitz, who was by his side, also readied his sword to protect Frederick.
"Where! Where did they get in from!?"
"From the hill to the rear right! There are approximately twenty—glugh!"
The soldier guarding the main camp attempted to answer Frederick's question, but an arrow pierced his throat. Appearing one after another from behind him was a group of twenty-some enemies clad in black attire.
Their physiques were all small, their faces covered with cloth, and they held weapons specialized for surprise attacks and assassination, such as daggers and short bows. They were clearly different from the other Betumia soldiers. They seemed to be an elite unit with special skills capable of slipping through the surveillance network to reach the main camp.
Several members of that unit aimed their bows at Frederick, while several others pointed things like blowguns toward him.
This is bad, Frederick thought, and in that instant, a flame as long as a snake struck the group in black.
Several people became balls of fire, and others instinctively scattered to hide in the shadows of the tents.
"Young master, are you safe?"
"I'm fine, well done... but please spare me the 'young master' at a time like this, Lane."
Frederick answered with a bitter smile to the woman's voice called out from the side.
Returning a glamorous smile was the fire mage employed by the House of Viscount Koenitz, who had been part of the main camp's direct guard. She was a half-elf woman who looked to be in her thirties, but her actual age was nearly seventy.
She was the most senior vassal who had served the Koenitz family since the time of the previous head, and even now, she occasionally called Arnold "young master" and Frederick "young master" (T/N: refers to him as bochama, a more intimate term for the son of the house).
"My apologies. You are His Excellency the Staff Officer now, aren't you?"
As she spoke, she stood on the opposite side of the chief attendant to protect Frederick.
Furthermore, the Guard of the Viscount Koenitz territory's army, who were tasked with the security of the main camp, gathered and formed a line surrounding Frederick to maintain vigilance in all directions.
Their number was about fifteen. All were the finest elites selected from the Viscount Koenitz territory's army, and some among them had gone out to train with the Kingdom Army alongside Frederick.
"If the main camp falls, the chain of command collapses! We will defend this place to the death! Consider that our fight here decides the fate of the Kingdom's west!"
"""Yes, sir!"""
When Frederick shouted, the Guard soldiers responded. In the meantime, the group in black could be seen scattering around the perimeter.
Then, the black-clad figures attacked simultaneously from multiple directions. Frederick and the Guard also slashed at the enemies before them all at once, and the battle began.
The Guard, who had undergone the highest level of training as regular soldiers, and the special forces specialized in irregular warfare. There were parts where their compatibility was good and parts where it was bad. However, the battle progressed slightly in favor of Frederick's side, which possessed a mage. Eventually, the main camp security soldiers other than the Guard also gathered, outnumbering the enemy.
Frederick thought victory was in sight, but at that moment, he took a direct hit from a thrust delivered by one of the black-clad figures from a blind spot. Although he tried to slash with his sword as he turned, the enemy closed the distance to within his reach in an instant and collided with him, knocking him to the ground.
The black-clad figure straddled Frederick and raised a dagger. A purple liquid, presumably poison, was coated on the blade.
And in the next instant, a crossbow bolt pierced the chest of that black-clad figure. The figure let out a muffled "gofuh" and collapsed right next to Frederick.
As Frederick sat up and looked toward where the bolt had come from, there was Konrad, the dialogue mage in charge of communications, holding a crossbow while hiding in the shadow of the command tent.
Perhaps because the combat had suddenly occurred so close to him, his face was pale. However, it was undoubtedly he who had finished off the black-clad figure that had been pinning Frederick down.
"...You saved me. How brave."
"Y-yes..."
When Frederick smiled at him, Konrad returned a strained smile.
By that time, the other black-clad figures had been defeated individually, and the confusion at the main camp subsided.
Frederick pulled away the cloth covering the face of the black-clad figure lying beside him. The face that appeared from beneath the cloth belonged to a cat-person man, likely in his teens, with a lingering innocence.
"...A beastman soldier."
Looking at several other black-clad figures, they were all youths of small and agile races, such as rabbit-people and rat-people.
He had heard that beastmen were targets of discrimination even in the Betumia Republic. Most likely, these black-clad figures were not a chosen elite, but a unit treated as convenient tools.
Thinking this, Frederick let out a small sigh and returned to the command of the battlefield.
...
"...The enemy is retreating! It's our victory!"
"""Ooooh!!"""
Noein shouted, and the soldiers raised voices of joy.
The sound of instruments signaling a retreat echoed from the direction of the Betumia Republic Army's main camp, and the Betumia soldiers who had entered the narrow pass turned their backs and fled. What remained were corpses and wounded soldiers, including those paralyzed by "Angel's Honey."
Officers with exhausted expressions barked orders to the exhausted soldiers to begin post-battle operations. The first tasks were vigilance in case the enemy returned and the rescue of allied wounded.
Meanwhile, immediately after declaring today's victory, Noein fell to his knees on the spot and vomited the contents of his stomach onto the ground.
"Cough, hack, hack."
"Noein-sama!"
Matilda rushed to Noein's side, rubbing his back and placing her hand to support his body.
"I'm okay... I'm just a little tired."
Noein answered Matilda, who had a worried expression, while wiping his mouth; since something was dripping from his nose, he wiped that with his hand as well. Looking at his palm, it was wet with a reddish-black color.
"...On the verge of mana depletion. That was dangerous."
As he muttered and looked around, the other golem users were also either sitting down or collapsed across the board. Only Gustav and Alain were barely standing. The golems, whose mana supply had been cut off, knelt on the battlefield in filthy states, like decayed statues.
"Yuri, can I leave the rest of the vanguard command... cleaning up the corpses, returning the enemy wounded to their camp, and other various things to you? Please cooperate with Lord Oggoren and Lord Wikander."
"Please leave it to me. Your Excellency, please return to the main camp and rest as soon as possible."
"Yeah... thank you."
While receiving Matilda's support, Noein barely managed to stand on his own feet and returned to the rear. To be honest, it was so painful to walk that he wanted to ask Matilda for a piggyback ride, but a general could not be carried by a female slave in front of the soldiers.
This time, the Lordberg Kingdom Western Army had managed to drive the enemy into retreat at the very last moment, truly by a hair's breadth. At a point where neither side could gain a decisive blow and they had entered a quagmire of pushing and shoving, the crossbow unit and cavalry unit changed the flow and succeeded greatly in breaking the morale of the enemy vanguard.
And until then, those who had supported the front line were the golem users like Noein and the infantry units. The ballista units in the rear also caused great confusion among the enemy reinforcements, and the hill defense unit held their positions until the end. It was undoubtedly a victory grasped by everyone.
For now, they had survived today. In Noein's exhausted consciousness, that was all he could think about.