The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 393 Tyrant (20) - The Eve of the Decisive Battle The Republic's National Army held the advantage over the Imperial Army. Among these, the most crucial factor was, as always, the quality and quantity of its commanders. Duke Valencia, who led the noble coalition at the core of the current Imperial Army, was a capable man, but if anything, he was closer to a civil official or politician than someone who had spent his life in the military. The 6th Ranks who fought so fiercely on the battlefield were likewise immensely powerful as individuals or small elite groups, but their command ability wasn't particularly outstanding. The military, which should have originally been responsible for such things, had rotted during Mihail's reign, and though the blatantly corrupt upper echelons had been purged, the mediocre officers beneath them still held command in the field even now. That was because even those mediocre officers were better than people who had no connection to military affairs at all. In contrast, the National Army consisted of true elites who had literally been forged and reborn through real combat, having fought repeatedly for survival since the nation's birth. They weren't strong because they championed freedom and equality. It was simply that, as soldiers and officers who had been through dozens, sometimes over a hundred real battles, they had naturally become seasoned veterans. In particular, the corps commanders under the Premier were granted broad autonomy, holding the authority to judge and act on most matters themselves as long as it didn't contradict the Premier's grand strategy. Depending on the corps commander's disposition, some even granted that same authority to the officers under them. While Imperial Army units in the field simply waited for orders to come down from higher units, National Army units judged and acted on their own. This was a gap the Imperial Army could not close no matter how hard it struggled. It was, quite literally, a system that only functioned properly when excellent commanders were embedded in every corner of the military. That was why, except in cases where a 6th Rank was deployed, the Imperial Army was frequently pushed back in almost every battle — and even the 6th Ranks were occasionally pushed back too. After all, resources like mana, stamina, and mental fortitude were finite even for a 6th Rank, so if they were strategically surrounded, even they had no answer. That was surely how it should have been. "...Don't you think the Imperials' movements have changed a bit?" At first, it was a faint change. Their own side's gains were 'a little' smaller than usual. Defeating the enemy became 'a little' harder, the enemy fought 'a little' better, and the ratio of routs compared to victories increased 'a little' more. Because the change was so faint, the National Army didn't notice the sense of unease at first. Minor defeats on the battlefield were, after all, bound to happen all the time. The enemy soldiers' or officers' hard fighting, difficulties caused by weather or terrain, changes due to minor conditions or mental state. Countless variables existed on the battlefield, and no army could keep winning without losses every single time. But what if that "little" kept continuing? One National Army officer was routed in a battle he'd thought was already won. It was because the enemy's reinforcements arrived a little sooner than expected. One National Army non-commissioned officer failed to carry out his ordered operational objective. It was because the enemy's defensive position was a little more thoroughly prepared than expected. One National Army officer realized, before he knew it, that he and his unit had been surrounded. It was because the enemy's troop deployment and formation differed a little from what was expected. One National Army corps commander looked at the operational map and blurted out without thinking. "What is this." Defeat, failure, flight, capture, annihilation. At some point, the units under him stopped reporting victory to the corps commander. They kept losing, kept requesting reinforcements, and cried out to be saved. Of course, even the corps commander wasn't simply sitting there taking the blows. "Deploy the reserves! Cut their line in half at the waist and split them apart!" "Concentrate the bombardment on each strongpoint and pour it on! Don't even think about powder consumption! If you can't use it when it needs to be used, it's just garbage anyway!!" "Don't fixate on annihilating the enemy! A unit that's already been split apart has no value as a unit anyway! Instead of wasting time on the rabble, strike at the core!" The corps commander wrung his units to the absolute limit, overturned the losing battle, and finally secured victory in his sector. But it failed to turn into a full-fledged gain. It was because an enemy force that shouldn't have been there suddenly appeared and struck their flank. The corps commander gritted his teeth and gave an order to the messenger. "Contact the 12th Corps right now!! What on earth are those guys doing!?" Because the Republic had cut off the heads of the nobles who'd carried on the magical tradition, its magical strength was rather weak, but the Premier had declared that offensive magic or anything of that sort wasn't needed at all — only these communication magic tools and communication magic had to be revived by any means and deployed throughout the units. Fireballs for burning enemy units could easily be replaced with other things, but there was a gap as vast as heaven and earth between commanding by repeatedly relaying orders and reports through messengers or carrier pigeons, and commanding by simply using magic tools and mages trained in communication magic. "This is the 8th Corps! An enemy force of unknown affiliation has appeared in Valentin Forest! That should be your sector's responsibility — what are you doing!" What the corps commander expected was an explanation, or an excuse, but what came back was screaming and cursing. [Damn it, it's not like we wanted it this way either!! An enemy that the 13th Corps was supposed to be handling struck our flank! We're dealing with that right now, so there's not even time to — damn it — keep talking. Sorry, but I'll contact you again later!!] With a searing blast, the communication cut off abruptly. It meant an enemy attack — and one by a mage with considerable firepower had pushed all the way near the command post. The corps commander didn't contact the 13th Corps to curse them out for causing one disaster after another. Doing so would have meant nothing beyond a moment's relief. Instead, he contacted the 4th Corps commander again. Judging from his own unit's current state, he would have to pull his forces back for a while, and that would leave the 4th Corps's flank exposed to attack — so he meant to give them advance warning. [What? Retreat? No!! We're pinned down right now too! If you pull out now, we'll be completely surrounded!!] But what came back wasn't consent, but confusion and a cry of alarm. The corps commander cursed but answered that he'd hold on for about three more hours, and the other man thanked him and threw himself back into command. That was all that could be done within the corps commander's own field of vision and authority. But further to the rear. At general headquarters, which received reports from every front, the officers were, without exception, dumbstruck. "...Simultaneous defeats are occurring on every front." "T-that's impossible. We were winning continuously until just a moment ago...!" It wasn't that the front-line officers had suddenly become incompetent. They were still putting on heroic struggles and winning local battles in their own assigned sectors. But before those victories could translate into real gains, they were affected by factors outside their own sector and failed to expand into a decisive advantage. That in itself wasn't something incomprehensible. The National Army was, after all, an army rich in war experience. Even when fighting other nations, they had often experienced cases where an incompetent enemy commander or unit leader was replaced with a capable one, and the enemy army suddenly fought well as if its people had changed. But even so, that was only a part of the front. If a commander on a particular front became capable, it would only change the situation on that theater — at best the adjacent theater too — but the overall tide wouldn't change. The same was true even if the commander-in-chief became more capable. No matter what orders the commander-in-chief gave, the field commanders actually carrying them out remained the same. And yet right now, the Imperial Army was moving on every single front as if its people had suddenly changed. "...It's as if they're a single living creature." Say a person's right hand gets bitten by a bug. Would they really respond with only the right hand? Wouldn't they swat the bug with the left hand, use both legs to go to water and prepare to wash it off, and blow away or shake off any new bug approaching them? A living creature can do that. Because the brain immediately recognizes the problem in the right hand and can move other parts of the body right away to respond. But an army cannot. Headquarters cannot immediately recognize a small problem in a front-line unit, and even if it does, it takes time for headquarters to issue a command and for that to be relayed back down again. To solve this, the Premier had created an army strong enough to set the continent ablaze, by granting the "right hand" autonomy to judge and act on its own without receiving separate instructions, or by smoothing out communications — but the enemy's movements were operating on a level even above that. "Eyes? Do they have eyes watching the entire front? And a mouth too, that can issue orders directly without going through any intermediate steps. Damn it. There's a limit to how much of a cheat this should be." While the other officers just blinked, unable to comprehend the situation, the Premier alone let out a curse. It was a curse filled with no small amount of envy. "If I had something like that, I could do the exact same thing...!!" It wasn't mere petulant whining. Because in truth, the Premier was confident that if he only had eyes to grasp the battlefield and a mouth to directly command local units, he could reproduce exactly what was happening on the front right now. No, in fact, he would have done even better than the enemy. The enemy commander did seem to be enough of a monster, and none of the Premier's own subordinates were on a level to catch up to that commander, but still, purely in terms of "command" alone, that commander fell short of the Premier himself. But at the same time, the Premier knew something. That creating eyes like that, a mouth like that, was also a matter of individual ability. In fact, even now, while in the middle of being beaten down, the Premier could guess at how the enemy had made this possible, but he couldn't come up with even the slightest idea of how to create the means to do it himself. After all, he was neither a mage nor an engineer. In the first place, wasn't it stranger for a commander and supreme commander to even know how to do something like that? The Premier stared at the map. And came to a conclusion. "Winning with orthodox command as things stand is impossible." Even if the Premier's own command ability surpassed his opponent's, it wouldn't be enough. There was simply too vast a gap between soldiers grasping the situation on their own judgment, reporting it up to higher units, having it pass through the chain of command step by step up to the Premier and then back down step by step again, versus simply plugging in directly the way the enemy did. If any chance of victory existed, there was only one. "I will personally take the field. Issue every communication magic tool equipped with eavesdropping countermeasures. At the very least, one communication orb must be in operation per company. Also, spread the word to every corps commander. Tell anyone above 5th rank to temporarily hand their duties over to the adjutant under the corps commander and come to my side." He would not fight as the commander-in-chief. He would fight as a field commander, seeing and grasping the situation with his own eyes directly. The target had already been decided. "We advance on the enemy capital, Kalastia." Exactly one day later. News reached the Empire that two of its own 6th Ranks had been defeated.