Chapter 152

Translator: Willia

War had a peculiar atmosphere all its own. The kind where you never knew when you might die, where your heart pounded wildly and your flesh trembled with dread and terror.

Hardly a day passed without some grim rumor reaching their ears. They said such-and-such village had been reduced to ashes, that corpses blanketed the fields, that they killed everyone indiscriminately, the elderly, women, children......

But this war had none of that. It made one wonder whether it even deserved to be called a war. That was what the Royal Road's garrison thought.

The south and west gates hadn't even been closed to traffic, and farmers carried on with their daily lives right alongside the enemy.

They had even seen children wander up to the knights' encampment to play pranks. The Order's soldiers just laughed at the kids, or played along with them.

From atop the walls, all of it was plainly visible.

And there was one thing to envy: the way they guzzled wine from the Azuelr brewery in Marin as though it were water. That expensive stuff that no one outside the king and a handful of great nobles ever got to taste.

The Order's soldiers seemed to figure there was no point letting it go to waste, so they cracked open the oak barrels, scooped it out with ladles, and drank it by the bowlful. They even shared it with the nearby farmers.

To the garrison's eyes, it looked like they were drinking liquid gold. Extravagance didn't get more extravagant than that.

It was no different now. Off in the distance, the Order's soldiers were gulping down that expensive wine, spilling it everywhere without a care.

A garrison soldier watching the spectacle from the wall, equal parts envious and incredulous, spoke up.

"It's not like this is some kind of wine war or anything......"

"Hey, but did you hear? There's talk of a marriage arrangement. Between the Knight Commander and Princess Ainea."

"Who's Princess Ainea?"

"The king's fifth daughter."

"Yeah? Isn't she young?"

"Nobles always do betrothals and stuff like that."

"That's true. But can't they cut back our shifts already? Or at least rotate us more often. Why the hell are they even posting men at the west gate? Isn't that just goddamn moronic?"

"It's because they keep the gate open during the day over there."

"Those guys are funny too. Why'd they set up camp at the north gate instead of going around to that side?"

"If they'd set up at the west gate, then this gate would've been the one left open. They know they can't pull off a full siege anyway."

"Either way, I just wish they'd wrap it up already, whether it's a marriage deal or negotiations. What even is this, going on for days now......"

The garrison soldier grumbled on and on. Not without reason, since there were night shifts on top of everything else. On unlucky days, he had to stand watch twice in a single night.

Tired of standing, the soldier sat down. He wasn't even looking outside anymore, and the other garrison soldier over there was already leaning against the wall, dozing off.

The garrison captain didn't particularly take issue with it either. He knew that cracking down too hard at a time like this would only breed resentment among the men.

Be strict when it matters, ease up when it doesn't. Everything is done by people, so one had to adapt to each situation as it came. War was no different.

The sun set and the people of the Royal Road finished their day's work and returned home. Stars appeared in the sky. From far away came the lonely cries of a scops owl or a horned owl.

The garrison soldiers on night watch grew more negligent by the day. Now they brought blankets, huddled down, pulled them over themselves, and went to sleep.

Time passed, twilight faded, and a bluish haze was slowly seeping into the night sky. The sun had not yet risen when a garrison soldier opened his eyes, roused by his uncomfortable sleeping spot.

He yawned long and stretched, and then noticed something dark far below the wall. A large mass, moving as one, almost like some great beast in motion.

He narrowed his eyes and peered closer, trying to make out what it was, when at some point the sound of clank, clank, clank began to reach his ears. Huh? Wait a moment.

Then someone came charging at the wall at terrifying speed, carrying a ladder by himself as if about to attempt a pole vault. And the instant he broke into his run, the army advancing behind him came into view.

"Wha...?!"

The soldier was stunned. Some part of him knew he needed to do something, but his heart had dropped into his stomach and his brain refused to function properly.

"Help! Somebody help!"

That was all he could manage to shout.

Before long the ladder hooked onto the wall, and someone scrambled up in a flash, skittering upward like a cockroach scaling a wall.

The garrison soldier grabbed the spear propped beside him with trembling hands. But that was as far as he got.

Something flashed before his eyes and the world tumbled end over end. His head struck the ground hard, and with a single thought of pain, consciousness cut out. His head had been severed.

Ricardt cut down the garrison soldier in one stroke and raised his blazing sword in the predawn light. High enough to be seen from a distance.

It was a signal. Knights carrying ladders rushed forward in a wave and slammed against the wall one after another. Then they climbed straight up. The remaining forces waited outside the gate.

Those still sleeping on the wall were killed in their sleep, and after descending the stairs from the wall, the knights hit multiple barracks simultaneously in pre-assigned teams.

A knight of the Order of the Steel Knights held up a torch and kicked open the guardhouse door with a bang, then bellowed:

"On your feet!"

The garrison soldiers jolted awake in a panic, only to be set upon by heavily armored knights who beat them senseless.

Thwack! Thwack! Crack! Thwack!

"Agh!"

"Wh-what the?!"

"Please! Somebody help!"

Then the knights grabbed them by the hair or the scruff of the neck, dragged them out without ceremony, lined them up facing the wall, forced them to their knees, and made them put their hands behind their heads. Every one of them was in nothing but their underclothes.

The garrison soldiers had no idea what was happening in the dead of night. They stared wide-eyed, jaws chattering, heads swiveling in every direction.

It was too dark to see much of anything, and they were scared half to death. The fear eclipsed the pain of being kicked and punched.

"Don't turn your head! You'll die!"

The knights did, in fact, kill a few as an example. At that, some of the garrison soldiers pissed themselves in terror, their minds going blank. Sleep had long since fled.

Before long, the gate opened. Raimund came running, leading a red horse by the reins.

"Commander! Commander!"

He shouted loudly, since it was dark in every direction. But there was no confusion to speak of; the plan had been laid out in full, and Ricardt, who had been waiting in position, walked over and mounted his horse.

Following behind, the Order's forces entered the Royal Road in disciplined formation. Knights rode out at speed and seized the main roads first.

Clop! Clop! Clop! Clop!

They blocked off every alley entrance, and soldiers lined both sides of the roads.

When the people of the Royal Road stepped outside to see what the commotion was about, a knight on horseback leveled the tip of his blade at them and roared with frost in his voice:

"Get back inside! Come any closer and you die!"

For all their leisurely lounging in recent days, once the operation began, the knights had "you die" on their lips at every turn. And they made good on it, too.

The people had no idea what was suddenly happening. Eyes wide with shock, they scrambled back into their homes. What is this? What's going on?

Meanwhile, Ricardt took fifty handpicked knights and stormed the royal castle known as the Water Palace. Ricardt had set up camp near the north gate precisely because it was the closest point to the castle.

But the castle was surrounded by a moat, and so Ricardt and his knights had no choice but to halt in front of it. They reined in their horses and looked out toward the east, far in the distance.

The castle's drawbridge ran on a fixed schedule for lowering and raising. The plan, therefore, was to seize the north gate at the moment of the surprise attack, cut off the lines of communication, and wait.

In truth, there had been a reason for leaving the west and south gates open to foot traffic all this time.

Ask those people, or rather, the farmers living on the nearby land, and they would tell everything. When the drawbridge went down and came back up, how many guardhouses the garrison had and where they were located, and so on.

They even divulged the personal details and family relations of individual garrison soldiers, where they lived, and who their wives were cheating with.

In an age where few grasped the importance of intelligence, only those who had learned it through experience employed such methods. Ricardt and the Order of the Steel Knights were people well versed in this sort of thing.

To the garrison, the Order might have looked like they were just drinking and lounging around, but all the while they had been steadily gathering intelligence and drawing up operational plans.

What did the farmers know? They were just happy to get free expensive wine, and they volunteered everything, even what they hadn't been asked.

When Ricardt glanced back, the main roads were already nearly fully secured. For any army, routes of movement were critical, and so were routes of retreat.

Gates, guardhouses, and roads had all been parceled out with the precision of a scale measuring weight or a ruler measuring length, each assigned and seized in an instant.

Ricardt turned back to face the drawbridge. There was no sign of it coming down. He was, if he was honest, getting a little anxious.

But as dawn began to break, the drawbridge slowly started to descend. Oblivious to the chaos that had erupted outside.

The moment the drawbridge hit the ground with a thud, Ricardt and his knights drove inside like a lance thrust through an opening. The castle guard was so startled he fell flat on his backside.

"Eek!"

Surging into the castle courtyard, forty of the knights raided the quarters where the Royal Guard was housed, while the remaining ten and Ricardt entered the castle interior.

There, he grabbed a passing maidservant by the scruff of the neck and said:

"Take me to the king's bedchamber."

Confronted by heavily armed intruders brandishing weapons, the maidservant rolled her eyes back and fainted dead away.

But there was no shortage of people to show the way. He simply grabbed another passerby and pushed them ahead.

Up on the second floor, the king's bedchamber was not far off. Two guards stood watch outside.

The two of them saw Ricardt and his knights, eyes glinting with murderous intent, and instinctively sensing the danger, shouted urgently into the chamber:

"Your Majesty!"

But Ricardt closed the distance like a thunderbolt, bringing his blazing sword down and across. The two guards did manage to draw their blades, but before they could so much as take a proper stance, they crumpled in sprays of blood. A broken sword clattered to the floor alongside its owner.

All the while, the knights secured the stairs and corridors, driving back anyone who approached at sword point.

"Go to hell! Come closer and you die!"

The king's bedchamber had a surprisingly small door. It was thick, however, and when Ricardt kicked it with all his strength, it burst open with a bang. The room inside was spacious.

"What is the meaning of this!"

By the time Ricardt smashed the door in, the king had risen from his bed in his nightclothes and was shouting. His eyes met Ricardt's directly as the man stormed in, sword in hand.

"Wh-who are you!"

"The revenge was a lie. But that doesn't erase what you've done. Framing innocent people and having them killed, that's a despicable thing to do, wouldn't you agree? So don't feel too wronged. You'll be less wronged than they were."

Ricardt spoke with sword in hand, its edge gleaming cold. His hazel eyes were colder than the blade itself.

King Leonard felt a chill race up his spine. Jaw trembling, he managed to speak.

"Wh-what? I, I, I just, everyone else was doing it......"

"The name is Ricardt. Nothing personal."

At the name Ricardt, for some reason the image of that elegant, flowing signature surfaced in King Leonard's mind. What the hell, the handwriting and the actual man don't match at all.

Just then, a woman who had been behind the silk curtain draped around the bed emerged in a sheer nightgown. She spread her arms wide and stepped in front of the king.

"How dare you! Do you have any idea where you are!"

She was younger than expected. Not the queen; a mistress, it seemed. Her nerve was admirable, but Ricardt backhanded her across the cheek with his leather-gloved hand.

Smack!

The king's mistress went flying and collapsed, out cold. King Leonard stared down at her with wide eyes. Then his neck suddenly burned, and her fallen form rushed up to fill his vision. Huh, what?

He didn't even realize his own head had been cut off and was falling. His headless body slumped over onto hers. Ricardt collected only the head and walked out.

When he emerged, the castle's people, already panicked by the sudden turn of events, caught sight of what Ricardt held in his hand and nearly fainted from the shock.

"Oh god!"

"Eek!"

The king's severed face had its eyes pointing in different directions, and the mouth hung slack and stupid, tongue lolling out.

Ricardt walked with his shoulders squared and his stride confident. The Chancellor, the Master of Arms, the Treasurer, and the rest of the Advisory Council couldn't so much as meet Ricardt's eyes, cowering like rats behind their servants.

Only now did they realize who they had been dealing with. Could there truly be a man this reckless and devastating in the world?

Whatever those cowards thought of him, Ricardt walked out of the castle without a second thought.

He pulled up the flag of the Basque royal house, a golden lion couchant on a red field, and impaled the king's head on the flagpole, planting it in the dead center of the courtyard. Blood trickled down the pole and soaked the banner.

Around that time, the Steel Knights emerged from the Royal Guard's quarters. One look at them, drenched head to toe in blood, made it plain enough what had happened inside.

Ricardt bellowed:

"Look well! This is the end of the man who framed the Order! This is what God has decreed! Divine punishment has been dealt!"

Then he mounted his Red Comet, pulled the flag free once more, and rode out of the castle. The main roads were still held, blocking the people's access, but crowds had packed the surrounding area to the point of bursting.

When Ricardt appeared carrying the flag with the king's head impaled on it, every eye was drawn to it. The sight was so shocking that the minds of the Royal Road's people went utterly blank.

"The Order is innocent!"

Ricardt rode slowly down the main road, the king's head raised high on its banner, and shouted.

Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop.

At that, the knights and soldiers of the Order, knowing full well it was all part of the plan, were overcome with emotion and shouted in unison.

"The Order is innocent! The Order is innocent!"

In the silence of the crowd, only the Order of the Steel Knights roared. Six thousand men dominated the entire city.

Ricardt wrote on the whitewashed wall of an especially large building, using the king's blood as ink.

<With this, God has distinguished the guilty from the innocent.>

Then he planted the flag before it, displaying King Leonard's head for all to see.

The people of the Royal Road thought the kingdom was falling. The thought even crossed their minds: are we all going to die? It had all happened so suddenly, so out of nowhere, that no one could collect themselves.

The Order's assault had been like a bolt of lightning, like gale-force winds and raging waves crashing down. It was over in an instant.

And yet, when you really thought about it, all that had actually died were a handful of garrison soldiers, the Royal Guard, and one king. In other words, the gap between what had actually occurred and the shock people felt was enormous.

Ricardt and the Order of the Steel Knights had scared the living souls out of everyone, and while still holding the roads, they cleaned out every last royal vault and storehouse. Brazenly, in broad daylight.

Then they marched out of the Royal Road with their heads held high and headed north. The sun had just fully risen, announcing the arrival of morning.

The farmers near the Royal Road, unaware of what had taken place inside, smiled and waved at the departing Order.

Chapter 31 – The Reason for War. End.

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