Ouroboros Record ~Circus of Oubeniel~

Chapter 64: Like Military Boots 2 (2)

Bringing him back to reality, a cold blade was sent towards his neck from behind.

"Since Im here, might as well bring back another head."

Elisha had suddenly decided to pull her horse back and send her blade towards him. Her sword was also imbued with some kind of magic that gave it coldness unlike that of other regular metal.

At this distance, he was unable to resist. He would be taken out. As soon as he realised this, he shouted.

"......retreat! Retreat and rendezvous with the other troops!"

The last order was cut off midway by a flash of blue silver.

The invaders, who were almost within striking distance of Volden, paid the ultimate price with their lives.

While he was separated from his body and hovering in the air, his eyes watched the scene of his troops being overrun by the knights who had sortied from their fort.

"Look! They're running, those guys!"

"Hell yeah, you Eastern bastards!"

"Long live our boss! Long live Commander Balbastre!"

The enemy soldiers that had surrounded the fort were retreating away like a receding tide. Seeing this, the fierce men of the Second Order raised their voices in joy. After all, this was the first invasion in fifty years. They were the only victors who had defeated the enemy while their allies had fallen. It was a complete victory, with the leader of the group, a woman with a beautiful face, taking the lead in destroying the enemy, while they suffered no damage whatsoever. They were all proud of their victory.

But the leader of the group, Elisha Balbastre, who was their leader and reason for their victory. As she turned her horse around and was about to return to the fort, her expression was one of boredom.

"Good work, Commander."

"Feels tiring."

She only gave a curt reply to the vice-commander, who quickly came by to her side and offered words of encouragement.

"More importantly, shut those fools who are making merry, Vice Commander. It's only a small victory that we obtained in a small skirmish."

"......such harsh words. Even though it is a small-scale battle, it was a defensive battle with hardly any reinforcements. This victory is paramount to later fights. You should be a little more happy with..."

"Hey, Al. Have you turned into an idiot too?"

Alfred Simon Prudemache, the deputy commander, froze at her harsh, scathing words.

"Or are you perhaps testing me? I'm sure the other side will challenge us again and again in an attempt to capture the provincial city. And next time, they'll do it in earnest."

"Yes. The people we beat off today were only an advance party. It's mostly a supply corps. They must have been distracted by the weakness of our defences and let them out."

Alfred, who had quickly restarted his thought processes, stated fluently.

The St. Gallen army had to march over the mountains, where it was difficult to secure supply routes. Their food shortage and economic crisis were so serious that it became their motivation for war. For these reasons, the St. Gallen army depended on the enemy territory of Volden for the supplies it needed. By now, in various parts of the state, the enemy soldiers were probably looting the wheat fields and breaking into food stores to secure food supplies.

This time, the group that broke into this fort on the way to the provincial capital was probably a group that had set out with such a purpose. However, the soldiers in Volden were more vulnerable than expected, so they decided to take advantage of the situation and hit the capital. That's probably why they were attacking here.

"Oh, so you did understand."

Elisha dismounted lightly as she said this. The unicorn groaned, perhaps disapproving of the sudden lightness of his back.

"Besides. I can't be so lowly as to be proud of a win I picked up in a losing battle. This doesn't even count as stalling. At best, it's just a way to score some points."

"Scoring points? For the old man who sent us here?"

"Ah, yes. He would claim the dispatch of the knights as his foresight and this victory as his merit. As an excuse to criticise the red-haired boy. That's what the old man would do."

While the soldiers under the umbrella of the Count Oubeniel were losing battle after battle, the knights sent by Lavallee were winning. This was exactly what the old conspirator was aiming for. Tullius Oubeniel, the young man who had just succeeded the count's family, loses his reputation because of the defeats of his subordinates, while Lavallee takes the victories of Elisha and the others as his own achievements.

"That's troubling. The war with our neighbours alone is difficult enough, but to have our own political disputes involved as well?"

Alfred sighed.

The suspicions surrounding the man named Tullius Shernan Oubeniel, such as his involvement in the Great Fire of the Royal Capital last year and his brainwashing of the nobles, were certainly serious. If they were true, he should be beheaded at once. However, war was not so easy to win with the country still divided.

Alfred let out such fears, but Elisha shook her head.

"By winning we can manage somehow. Look at the equipment of the enemy soldiers."

She pointed out with her chin, at the wreckage of the enemy scattered around the fort.

The equipment of the St. Gallen soldiers was all lightly armed. It is no wonder since they had to cross the mountains to attack them. If they wore heavy armour, they would have lost a lot of strength climbing up and down the mountain passes and would have run out of energy in the mountains before crossing the border.

"I see. If the opponent is only prepared to do surprise attacks, a main force that comes in fully prepared can handle them easily."

There was no need for the reinforcements of the Kingdom of Arquell to wear light armour to get here. A fully equipped army would be able to defeat a raiding party with as though they were naked.

"If the surprise attack had been completely decided, the country would have been in uproar and they would be able to do whatever they wanted. But the old man didn't just predict this, he even pushed the other side to start the war. If that's the case, then we were fully prepared for this war. I'm sure he's back in the capital by now, working hard to send reinforcements."

If it had been a complete surprise attack, the whole of Volden would have fallen by winter due to the delay in mobilisation, and the relief from the royal capital would not have been able to advance due to the snow, and the war could have been prolonged until next spring. If that were to happen, the invaders that had taken them by surprise could pass the winter here and later move north in response to the main reinforcements attacking the Allemande area while encircling them. They would have been able to take not only Volden, but also Allemande. Even if that didn't happen, the playing field would at least be somewhat even, and there was no telling how it would turn out.

However, the main body of reinforcements from the Kingdom of Arquell would probably arrive in Volden this autumn. The Duchy of Allemande was also not weakly defended so that they could go down between the time from now to the end of winter. It would probably take at least half a year for the Duchy of Allemande, a key point for the Kingdoms defence, to fall. The strategy of a pincer attack by St. Gallen's main army and the invasion force to Volden would be up in smoke if they could not occupy this place and persist until spring.

Arquell would win. And Lavallee would have the opportunity to take advantage of post-war to purge Tullius, who failed to protect Volden.

All this was likely, Alfred imagined. The old man's longing to avenge the humiliation of the Kingdoms defeat fifty years ago. For peace negotiations, he would demand the lost land of Elpis-Loane. With this achievement as a backdrop, the influence of the centralist would rise and push the decentralist behind. However, anything could happen in a war. It may end up with the armies of the local lords taking credit for the victory. In that case, the purge of Tullius could come into play. If he was removed, the land of Volden would be without a lord. Volden could be carved out as a reward. After all, the land would be torn to shreds by the ravages of war. The lords rewarded with the land would have to spend their time and energy to grow the land again, and would not have the energy to deal with the centralist faction. It was also possible to reward them with Elpis-Loane

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to Alfred that it was a well-designed plan. It was a plan that the schemer had spent a lifetime devising.