The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#390 Tyrant (17) - Sovereign and Subject "The Victim Barony has been routed! It has been occupied by the enemy!" "Oros Valley has been breached as well!! The enemy keeps advancing!!" "Their firearms' performance has improved even further!! Regular soldiers can't handle them!!" Having received the battle reports, the Imperial commanders were, without exception, out of their minds. "D-does this even make sense?" True to a nation that, from the very start, pursued hegemony through strength rather than any convincing ideology or spirituality, the Empire was a country that had poured considerable effort into its military. A prime example was how the Mana Cultivation Method, which other nations kept tightly hidden within specific families, had been made available for any soldier to train in, so long as they belonged to the regular army. Of course, since mana was by nature a power that depended heavily on talent, even if a hundred soldiers were taught it, not all of them would become superhumans capable of drawing sword aura from a blade or leaping over castle walls on foot. Most soldiers hit their limit at having somewhat better physical abilities than others, and even the more talented ones only reached the level of a beast of prey. Anyone above that tier was siphoned off into the knight track entirely. But even that was enough. Because the power that soldiers, each possessing beast-level physical force, could bring to bear once equipped with proper armor and weapons and given combat training, was truly tremendous. Secure a sufficient number of soldiers of a certain quality or above, then crush the enemy head-on from the front. That was the Empire's basic principle, and the driving force behind why its commanders believed "we're different" even while watching the various small and mid-sized central nations get swept away. But their opponent was not a group that would fight according to their notion of common sense. Bang! Ratatatat! "Guhk!!" "What— why is the enemy here?! What are the allied troops up front even doing?!" "I-it seems we've been lured by the enemy!! We need to pull back!!" "Damn it, retreat! Retreat!! Guh!!" A head-on clash of strength? Elite soldiers each possessing high physical ability? The Republic's answer to this — Premier Nathan's and his officers' answer — was simple. "Then all we have to do is not fight them head-on." Deception, luring tactics, and strategies and tactics that made use of terrain features. Scatter the enemy by whatever means necessary, then devour the scattered units one by one. It doesn't matter if we have 20 and the enemy has 100. Split them into ten groups of ten, then engage just one of those groups — and suddenly it's 20 against 10, with our side in the majority. Physical ability on the level of a beast of prey? Even a beast of prey just has a somewhat tougher hide — it's not that bullets simply don't pierce it at all. The only difference is whether it dies from one shot or needs several, and that much could easily be handled at the field commander's discretion. Of course, there were some it didn't work on. "You wretches!! Do you really think you can stop us with those pathetic little sticks!!" Knights. In particular, knights heavily armored in plate were, in many cases, highly resistant to firearms, the Republic's main weapon. At 4th rank, one could imbue mana not only into one's own flesh but into tools as well to reinforce them, and armor reinforced with mana deflected bullets head-on. In particular, the aura armor of high-ranking knights who had reached 5th rank and could materialize mana itself boasted absurd defensive power that withstood not just bullets but even a direct cannon hit. An absurdity so great it was hard to believe they were the same species of human. But the National Army had long since found a countermeasure even for this, through countless battles of the Revolutionary War. "A knight's mana isn't infinite. Armor and shields charged with mana deflect bullets, but every single shot they block keeps consuming more mana." "There's no need to kill them in one shot. Just keep them in check well enough, cut off the reinforcements and supplies meant to support them, and surround and trap them." "The enemy is human too, in the end. Go without food and you weaken; go without rest and you flag. Teach those Imperial bastards, who put their faith in a handful of strong individuals, the truth that one person cannot beat a group." An endless war of attrition. Whenever the knights swung their swords and cut down the enemies before them, several times that many enemies would appear out of nowhere and level their gun barrels at them. Even an ordinary soldier who simply swung a sword or spear required a longer training period than an ordinary Republic soldier who used firearms as his main weapon; it was only natural, then, that knights — who demanded even more conditions, talent, and training — would end up relatively few in number. As situations in which knights who had devoted their whole lives to swordsmanship and mana ended up forfeiting their lives to Republic recruits who'd started training only a few months earlier occurred with increasing frequency, the Empire's defensive lines kept collapsing one after another, almost like dominoes toppling in succession. *** "...I expected them to be strong, but this is beyond imagination." Duke Valencia, who had come to hold the post of Prime Minister both as a symbol of reconciliation between the imperial household and the nobility and thanks to his own competence, let out a groan. That the Republic's next target, after crushing the Central Alliance and taking a while to catch its breath, would be the Empire was a fact the Empire's own people knew well. Because they knew, they had made their own preparations — reinforcing troops at fortresses, thoroughly fortifying key strongholds, and so on. The only problem was that, despite all those preparations, everything had been smashed to pieces regardless. 'Well, I suppose an army on paper and an army in reality are two different things.' With the country's upper echelons having been rotten for fourteen years, how could the military possibly have been any different. Thanks to the regular army system the old Emperors had built, they had far more elite soldiers than other nations that simply conscripted farmers and threw them onto the battlefield — but the level of the commanders who were supposed to handle those very elite soldiers was truly abysmal. Once political maneuvering, bribery, and connections became the top priorities for promotion, it was inevitable that the military would become incompetent. Duke Valencia stole a sidelong glance at the Emperor upon the throne. 'If only there had been a little more time.' His approach was somewhat — no, rather seriously — extreme and radical, but at least by this point there was no room left to doubt the Emperor's competence. Within a single month, he had reorganized the officials who would form the backbone of his policies, and by the second month, he had overturned the provinces, which could be called potential internal enemies. It wasn't clear exactly how high a priority the military had been for the Emperor, but at the very least, he wouldn't have left it untouched, and if he had touched it, he would surely have produced results. The Republic had simply moved before that could happen. "....." The other officials of the court likewise, to a man, wore faces full of dismay. They'd thought that even if the Republic was strong there would at least be some semblance of a fight — but this was just a one-sided beating, plain and simple. What could be the reason that people who would normally be clamoring over something, demanding countermeasures no matter what, had all fallen silent at once? It was simply that not one of them could come up with what should be done, or how. "Prime Minister." "Yes, Your Majesty." "I'll need to borrow the strength of the noble coalition centered on House Valencia. Will that be possible?" Ironically enough, House Valencia — and the nobles centered on House Adalhedis — were among the rare few within the Empire who possessed a proper fighting force. This was partly because the Duke and Beatrix were simply capable to begin with, and partly because, standing in opposition to the Emperor, they'd had no choice but to keep their edges honed like a hedgehog's quills and continually hone their skills. And precisely because of that, the Emperor's remark was also extremely dangerous. If taken the wrong way, it could sound like an intention to let the nobles tear each other apart fighting the Republic, then discard them once they'd served their purpose. The Duke pondered for a moment, then met the Emperor's eyes. Facing the Emperor's utterly composed gaze, the Duke too found his own words, not the language of politics, spilling from his mouth. "How much time do you need?" "One month. It's fine even if we can't win. Just hang on and buy time." "The Empire's 6th Ranks still follow Your Majesty even now. Could you not borrow their strength, or control the commanders the same way you're currently handling a thousand officials?" "I could, I suppose. That alone would probably let us fight well enough. But we'd still lose." What would he do while buying time? Could a mere month actually change anything? The Duke did not ask such things. Because the Emperor he had observed thus far was not a man who needed that kind of back-and-forth. Instead, he asked something else. "Then what will we gain from this?" The Emperor answered. "Either I take your daughter as my wife, or I take no one at all. One or the other. I'll grant whichever you prefer." If he chose the former, the Duke would become imperial in-law kin. Considering that the imperial household was practically scorched earth at this point, he would be able to take over almost the exact position the former imperial household had held. If he chose the latter, Trisha would remain Crown Princess, and in that case, House Adalhedis's political standing would shoot through the roof. Since this would mean the Duke had conceded in that case, House Valencia's standing would grow firm as well. Either way, the one benefiting was practically the head of the current noble faction. What the Emperor had just done was guarantee that he would not, for the sake of his own absolute power, go on to slaughter every last noble. To the Duke, who had been harboring a fear that, faced with an Emperor whose actions seemed to know no limits, their turn to be cut down might come someday too, there was no other statement that could have put him more at ease than this. There was no need to even question whether it was true or false. The Emperor had never once told a lie thus far, and besides, if he truly meant to deceive them with a falsehood, there would be no escaping it no matter what they did anyway. "I shall uphold your command, sole sovereign of the Empire."